A conversation with André Xuereb: Malta’s Approach to Quantum Safe Networks.

Patricia: Okay. So first you can introduce yourself?

André Xuereb: Hi, I’m Andre Xuereb. I’m founder and CEO of Merqury Cybersecurity Limited.

Patricia: And what is Merqury? What are you doing?

André Xuereb: Merqury is kind of a middleware layer for quantum networks, particularly quantum key distribution networks. We know that technology exists to create quantum key distribution networks practically everywhere, we know that there are many potential clients that need this technology, but there needs to be some sort of translation layer that harmonizes all the different kinds of QKD, all different kinds of quantum distribution technologies, and presents kind of one single homogenous network to the end user and gives them something nice and pretty to look at to understand how the network is performing, if there are areas and so on. And ultimately, that’s kind of the key role that we play. We sit between the quantum distribution device vendors and the end user, and we provide everything in between.

Patricia: How are you seeing the reaction from the market?

André Xuereb: the market is changing. It’s a very, very dynamic market. I think we’re just about to start getting out of this idea of “one provider, one technology per network”, and starting to enter the era of complex QKD networks. We have multiple countries, multiple vendors, we have satellite, terrestrial networks, etc. and now that we’re starting to see these complex networks arise, the market is starting to realize that you need something like us, something like a middleware layer, in order to provide the service to the client. Otherwise, it’s just a very, very interesting and useful technology, but it’s not a product.

Patricia: What would you say are your main clients or your main collaborators right now? Who do you need to work with?

André Xuereb: We have a very good relationship with most of the QKD device vendors. We’re not competing with any one of them. We don’t produce our own hardware. Ultimately, what we do is we add value to them and they add value to us. We have a very, very good relationship with the vendors and with the vendors we can also set up arrangements where effectively we provide the software to their hardware, kind of the network operating system, so to speak. But then we also have a user facing side where we work with telcos, for example, to provide quantum networks or quantum secured connectivity to specific end users like banks or government services.

Patricia: Are you doing already any proof of concept in Malta or maybe elsewhere?

André Xuereb: Yeah. We’ve been involved in deploying Malta’s national quantum network, which is 13 nodes, I think. It’s a reasonably large quantum network, mostly on lit fiber. That was a big technological challenge, which we had to overcome. And there’s also things like multiplexing, so it’s a very technically interesting network, let’s put it this way (laughs). And that network is serving mostly the government of Malta, so we have the data centers, security services, armed forces and other kinds of clients within the public sector. Now we’re starting to look at the more commercial market, where in particular financial services could be a useful first client.

Patricia: The last question is the one we were asking people last year because it was the year of quantum: what are your wishes for the future the field of quantum communications?

André Xuereb: I mean, given the space we occupy, I think the one wish I have for the future is that somehow, we find a common language to speak. If you look at LinkedIn, if you look at what’s going on social media, it’s always phrased as “post-quantum versus quantum key distribution”. But post-quantum is software so it’s easy, so let’s forget about quantum key distribution. It’s a very poor argument because at the end of the day, these are different technologies which can coexist. My only wish is that somehow, we find this common language between not just the people in the QKD space, but also the cryptographers, the national security agencies. And we just find one way of building a technological stack that is better for everyone involved, rather than being engaged in this artificial battle.