DARPA Awards Qunnect Contract to Advance Carina Polarization Compensation for Quantum Network Reliability

DARPA Contract Award: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded Qunnect a contract to advance next-generation polarization compensation in its Carina quantum entanglement distribution system.Multi-City Network Deployments: Carina currently anchors quantum-network deployments in New York, Bozeman, Berlin, and Albuquerque across two continents.Signal Resilience Priority: Funding targets continuous real-time correction of polarization drift and other effects that can degrade quantum signals on deployed fiber.Qunnect announced the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded the company a contract to advance the next generation of its Carina rack.Carina is a system which Qunnect describes as the first commercially available turnkey quantum entanglement distribution system. The award provides new funding to improve Carina’s polarization compensation nodule, the subsystem continuously analyzes and corrects polarization drift and other effects that can degrade quantum signals in transit.Carina currently anchors quantum-network deployments in New York, Bozeman in partnership with Montana State University, Berlin in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.Telecommunications fiber can introduce polarization drift and other impairments particularly challenging for quantum signals. Quantum information distributed by Qunnect’s Carina platform is carried by photons whose states are sensitive to polarization changes caused by temperature fluctuations and other environmental effects.The company’s proprietary system compensates for polarization drift as entangled photons travel across deployed fiber.DARPA’s contract specifically supports advancement of the next-generation polarization compensation nodule within the Carina suite. This subsystem includes the active polarization compensator (Qu-APC), which monitors polarization drift and applies corrective adjustments in real time to preserve entanglement fidelity.By continuously monitoring and compensating polarization, the technology supports entanglement distribution over existing deployed telecom fiber. Qunnect has emphasized reliability of this compensation layer is a key engineering challenge in moving from laboratory demonstrations to deployed quantum networks.Qunnect says it is the first company to anchor multiple quantum-network deployments distributing quantum information across telecom fiber spanning major cities on two continents.The Carina system underpins deployments including New York’s GothamQ network connecting research and laboratory sites, the Bozeman network developed with Montana State University, the Berlin network operated in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, and the open-access ABQ-Net in Albuquerque. Global governments increasingly view quantum networking as critical infrastructure. What differentiates Qunnect is that it has already moved beyond theory. The company is operating on deployed fiber in multiple cities today, giving it a significant head start as governments, telecommunications providers, and commercial organizations look for experienced partners to help build the next generation of communications infrastructure. These deployments provide opportunities to evaluate system performance under real-world fiber and environmental conditions.Noel Goddard, CEO of Qunnect, stated the company made an early commitment to designing instruments that operate on the same infrastructure already in widespread use. The company has focused on making quantum networking practical, validated through city deployments, private-industry partnerships, and growing government support.Mehdi Namazzi, Chief Science Officer, said global governments increasingly view quantum networking as critical infrastructure and Qunnect’s existing operational footprint gives it experience which can assist partners seeking to build next-generation communications infrastructure.Based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Qunnect says it commercialized the first room-temperature quantum memory in 2021 and continues to expand its Carina quantum-networking product suite.DARPA funding advances Qunnect’s Carina system to improve real-time polarization compensation for reliable quantum networks on commercial fiber.Find out more here.—Further articles, reports, and the latest quantum computing news may be found at The Qubit Report.BTQ Technologies completed its acquisition of QPerfect and reported commercial progress across its trusted quantum platform in its Q2 2026 corporate update. 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