3QN: Towards A New UK Industry for Novel Quantum Receivers in Nascent Satellite QKD Global Markets

Satellites are about to beam quantum keys down to UK-built ground receivers, turning an experimental physics trick into a commercial service. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) lets two parties share a cryptographic key that is theoretically immune to eavesdropping. Fibre-optic networks already do this in several cities, but the signal dies after about 150 kilometres. Satellites avoid that problem: single photons can travel hundreds of kilometres through free space, and satellite-to-ground QKD has been demonstrated. The bottleneck is now on the ground. To turn satellite QKD into a practical service, a network of Optical Ground Receivers (OGRs) is needed to catch and detect those photons. The UK has strong photonics manufacturing capability but no domestic OGR industry yet. This project specifies what those receivers must do, builds and tests a prototype QKD receiver, and then designs a plan for scaled manufacture in the UK. If successful, it could create a new UK industry supplying ground stations for secure satellite communications. The immediate impact is on critical infrastructure—governments, banks, and telecoms operators need long-distance encryption that cannot be broken by future quantum computers. Most people will never see an OGR, but the security of international data traffic could quietly depend on them.