October 6, 2026 — Quantum City at the University of Calgary has announced Toshiba International Corporation as the winner of its latest Quantum City Global Challenge, an international program exploring how quantum technologies can address real-world challenges in secure communications.

The Securing Critical Infrastructure Challenge, led by Quantum City in partnership with The City of Calgary and Numana, with support from Alberta Innovates, brought together organizations from across the global quantum ecosystem to explore how quantum-enhanced technologies can strengthen the security and resilience of critical infrastructure against emerging cyber threats.

Much of today's online security relies on encryption built on math problems that would take conventional computers thousands of years to solve. A powerful enough quantum computer could solve many of them quickly, which would leave much of that encryption insecure. The risk is already real. In "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, adversaries capture encrypted information today and store it until they have the tools to unlock it.

One approach to security is quantum key distribution (QKD), which sends encrypted information as tiny particles of light through fibre optic cable. Any attempt to intercept them changes the light, so the intrusion is detected right away. 

Winning ideas

For the winning Toshiba team, the challenge provided an opportunity to demonstrate how quantum technologies could contribute to the future of secure communications.

Toshiba’s QKD systems provide a method for distributing quantum-safe encryption keys between parties which is the backbone of quantum secure networks. Toshiba offers a solution that is deployable today while providing a solution that is secure and robust against future developments in mathematics and computing.

“At Toshiba, we help organizations build secure, future-ready networks with the confidence to withstand emerging cyber risks and the quantum era ahead,” says Terry Cronin, vice-president of Toshiba. “We are excited to partner with Quantum City on this challenge to showcase our solutions.” 

The judges also awarded KETS Quantum Security, a quantum technology startup, an honourable mention in recognition of its contribution to the challenge.

KETS is focused on delivering scalable and cost-effective quantum-safe encryption solutions for real-world applications, embedded within standard telecommunications equipment using a chip-based approach.

“The threat of a quantum computer to breaking our secure communications is today’s problem, not tomorrow’s,” says Dr. Chris Erven, PhD, chief commercial officer with KETS.

From local challenge to global impact

The Global Challenge Series reflects Quantum City’s approach to innovation: Bringing researchers, technology developers, startups and industry together around meaningful problems and creating pathways for emerging quantum technologies toward real-world adoption. Across quantum computing, sensing and communications, the program connects the global quantum community with industry partners to develop and validate solutions that address industry needs.

The latest challenge focused on securing increasingly connected communities and drew proposals from eight countries. From water and energy infrastructure to emergency response networks, modern smart cities rely on interconnected systems and secure communications to operate safely and reliably.

On Oct. 23, that exploration moves from proposal to practice. The City of Calgary’s Wave Tech Centre will host a live demonstration of QKD running over The City’s dark fibre optic network. The event will bring together The City, which supported the challenge; Numana, which facilitated the deployment; and the winning teams, who will share the technology behind their solutions.

"The City is responsible for ensuring the systems connecting the services Calgarians rely on remain secure and dependable,” says Monique Nesset, IT Leader, Emerging Technologies Foresight & Readiness. “Because these complex systems continue to evolve, we have to stay ahead of it, and that’s what we’re doing through this challenge at our Wave Tech Centre. We serve Calgarians, so we’re invested in finding innovative solutions that can strengthen our community’s resilience."

Building Alberta’s quantum advantage

The challenge advances Quantum City’s work to connect quantum research with industry, creating opportunities to test emerging technologies against real-world needs and accelerate collaboration. By bringing diverse expertise together around tangible challenges, Quantum City is helping turn Alberta’s quantum potential into solutions with global reach.

“At Quantum City, we operate under a solutions-driven mindset,” says managing director Dr. Megan Lee, PhD. “We don’t start with the technology looking for a problem to solve; we start with the challenge and ask ourselves: Can quantum technology be the best solution?”