Institute of Semiconductors, Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

In the spacious laboratory, there stood an old man with a dignified face.

In addition to him, there was a circle of people with obvious status behind him. Among them, there are Director Li, who is more familiar with Lu Zhou, and there are also the first and second leaders of several departments who are just nodding their heads.

At this moment, everyone's eyes were focused on the uniquely shaped tubular device and the back of the man standing on the single-photon entanglement transmitter, waiting for his next move.

Glancing at the time on his watch, Lu Zhou turned his gaze to the researcher standing in front of the computer and nodded to him.

"It's time to go."

"Okay."

Two short sentences of exchange concluded.

The researcher standing in front of the computer pressed the button.

Almost the same scene as the scene that Academician Xue saw at the beginning, the entangled photon pairs were emitted from the single-photon entanglement transmitter at an ultra-high frequency, forming a stream of information composed of single-photon pairs, lighting up the signal light on the quantum repeater and being amplified and emitted to a receiver hundreds of meters away from the laboratory.

At the same time, the traditional communication channel, which is parallel to the quantum communication channel, also releases a huge amount of data at the receiving end, which is decoded by a special decoding device based on the received quantum key.

The whole process involves extremely complex physical and informatics principles, but for the person standing next to the whole device, it is only a matter of a moment.

Except for the experts of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who gathered in front of the computer to watch, they all showed shocked and surprised expressions, and the ministerial-level leaders standing behind the old man did not even realize that the experiment was over.

It wasn't until Lu Zhou reminded them that the experiment had been successful that their faces showed a look of confusion and consternation.

The first to come back to his senses, Director Li walked quickly to the side of the group of experts and hurriedly confirmed.

"The experiment was successful?"

Academician Gao Junwen from the Institute of Information Engineering blinked blankly, then exchanged a surprised look with his old friend next to him, and then looked at Director Li and nodded.

"Yes without a doubt...... A transmitter sends a 'hello world' and the corresponding quantum key through the traditional channel and the quantum channel, respectively. As a result, it is impossible to decode these two words, even with our state-of-the-art supercomputer, without mastering the key. ”

"So we can assume that even if an attacker has unlimited computing resources, they still can't decipher our cryptosystem...... Without a doubt, this is the unconditional secure communication technology we are looking for. ”

After using two sentences in a row to express the excitement in his heart, the expression on Academician Gao Junwen's face seemed to be unable to distinguish whether this was a dream or reality, and he admired it dreamily.

“…… I didn't expect to be able to see such a perfect system in my lifetime. ”

"It's like a dream."

When he said these words, Academician Gao did not deliberately control his volume.

It's not just Director Li who hears it.

The old man not far away, as well as the ministerial-level officials standing behind him, also heard this, and the expressions on their faces were replaced by the same shock.

After a long time, the old man spoke.

"This is quantum communication technology?"

"Yes," Lu Zhou nodded, and said in as plain terms as possible, "as Academician Gao said, theoretically no one can intercept the information passing through this channel. For medium and long distance communication, our technology will be absolutely safe and reliable. ”

The old man nodded, but soon thought of something, and immediately asked, "What if someone controls the repeater?" Like what...... Deploy a nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean. ”

Lu Zhou shook his head: "It's useless, the only thing the nuclear submarine can do is to destroy the quantum repeater, or cut the quantum fiber." Once the quantum key stops being distributed, the data transmitted through traditional optical fibers will also become invalid and become invalid information that can never be decrypted. ”

A complete quantum key is not represented by a single pair of entangled photons, and when one of the entangled photon pairs collapses because it is observed, making it impossible to reach the next "checkpoint", subsequent signals are interrupted.

In the face of such communication technology, the information sent is theoretically absolutely safe, unless someone can observe the entangled photon pairs without causing the exploration to collapse.

However, from a physical point of view, this is simply not possible.

At least, for the physics of Earth's civilization, it is impossible.

Looking at the uniquely shaped equipment in front of him, the old man was silent for a long time, and suddenly said with a heartfelt sigh.

"It's like magic."

Hearing this analogy, Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you only look at the results, any scientific research results can be included in the category of magic, especially when they are just discovered." ”

Facing Lu Zhou, the old man said solemnly.

"Information security has always been the most important difficulty we have encountered in the transformation of industrial informatization, or even one of them. Including quantum computers, there are also quantum communication technologies...... The impact on our society is probably no less than that of controlled fusion. ”

"I have to say thank you on behalf of the whole country."

Lu Zhou nodded slightly and said politely.

"You're welcome."

"It's also my honor to be able to witness this moment."

……

Upper Beijing.

Financial Street, Xicheng District.

A man in a suit stood in the doorway, reached out and straightened his neckline, and walked into the building with his head held high.

His name is Tony Azov and he is a manager from the American company SubCom.

As a giant in the global submarine fiber optic cable business, SubCom, Japan's NEC, and Europe's Alcatel-Lucent monopolize more than 90% of the global submarine cable market share.

As for why he is standing here.

That's because I smelled Franklin......

"Can you help me contact your Mr. Wang? I have an appointment. ”

Speaking fluently in Chinese, Azoff smiled at what he thought was confident and charming to the front desk MM.

"Wait a minute, I'll get in touch with you."

After waiting patiently for half a minute, a man who looked like a secretary walked in the direction of the elevator.

"You are Mr. Azoff, right, Mr. Wang is waiting for you in the conference room, please come with me."

After saying that, the secretary made a gesture of please, and led him to the elevator all the way to the conference room on the second floor.

When he arrived at the conference room, a middle-aged man dressed in a slightly fat look stood up from the conference table and held out his right hand to him with a smile.

"Welcome to Huaguo, Mr. Azov. You're here for the No. 3 Asia-Pacific Submarine Cable project, right? It's been a great journey! ”

"Thank you," Sitting down at the conference table, Azov took out the documents in the business bag he carried with him and spread them out on the table, looked at Mr. Wang, who was also sitting opposite, and said with a slight smile, "Now that you have understood, let's get started." ”

With the growing demand for transpacific communications, the original Asia-Pacific submarine cable line has been somewhat stretched, and the construction of the Asia-Pacific submarine fiber optic cable No. 3 (APCN3) has become an urgent matter.

Long before he came to China, the communications departments of South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and other countries had reached a preliminary cooperation intention to set up a committee with personnel from many countries to build this APCN3.

The main task of his business trip to China this time is to promote Huaguo's participation in the project and promote their submarine fiber optic cable business to the three giants of the Chinese communications industry.

After all, whether it is China, the United States, or other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, there is an urgent need for this submarine fiber optic cable, and Azov can't think of any possible reason for China to refuse.

Now for him, the question is simply how to skillfully use the art of negotiation to use landing sites and communications needs as bargaining chips to make their potential customers pay more for their submarine cables.

The negotiations went very well.

For communication companies, submarine fiber optic cables are just needed, and their choices are relatively few, Azov almost didn't spend much to make this Wang Zong's face show an expression of interest.

However, at this moment, the sound of the mobile phone vibrating suddenly rang.

Glancing at the caller ID on the mobile phone screen, Mr. Wang's face showed a look of embarrassment. Although he didn't really want to interrupt the meeting, the call was not something he could hang up.

"Sorry, I'll answer the phone." With an apologetic look on the manager of the SubCom company, Mr. Wang stood up from the conference table.

"It's okay, I can wait."

Looking at the Chinese man who left the office, Azov was not in a hurry, took a sip of coffee on the table, and waited quietly.

Minutes and seconds passed.

Azov, who had been quite patient before, couldn't help frowning slightly.

Originally, he thought that the call would end soon, but he didn't expect that there would be no movement outside for ten minutes.

Just as he wondered if he was going out to have a look, and looked at his watch for the fourth time, the door to the conference room finally opened, and the king came from outside.

It's just that this time, the expression on his face seems to be a little dignified.

It was this solemnity, which was completely different from the previous ones, that made Azov feel a little uneasy.

Sure enough, as if confirming his guess, the king always spoke in an apologetic tone.

"Sorry, about this project of the No. 3 Asia-Pacific submarine fiber optic cable...... We are not interested. ”

Azov's eyes widened, and he almost didn't get up from his chair.

"Wait, what do you mean you're not interested?"

"I'm really sorry, it's literal," maintained an apologetic expression, but Mr. Wang had no intention of changing his mind, and continued, "We have no plans to add submarine fiber optic cables for the time being, at least not yet." Why don't you leave a phone number, and we'll get back to you if we change our minds. ”

Hearing this, Azov almost vomited blood.

What does it mean to change your mind and get in touch again?

He even brought the contract!

He's here today with the intention of closing a deal – or at least signing a letter of intent to cooperate!

"I sincerely advise you to reconsider! According to the current growth rate of communication bandwidth demand, only the Asia-Pacific submarine optical fiber cable No. 2 line cannot meet the needs of information development in the Asia-Pacific region! ”

Mr. Wang, who was sitting opposite Azov, nodded his head and said without any change in his expression.

"We'll think about it."

That was the end of the talks.

Later, Azov went on to China Unicom and China Mobile, and visited two other telecommunications giants in China, but the answers he received were almost identical.

It was even worse than what happened to him at the telecom, and the latter two had no intention of discussing the matter with him, and sent them away without even five minutes.

His intuition told him that it was all because of that phone call.

However, he didn't understand what kind of phone call had so much energy to turn everything into what it was now.

When he finally came out of the mobile headquarters building, Azov was in a state of bewilderment, and the initial expression on his face was gone.

Could it be that NEC or Alcatel-Lucent stole their business?

But it doesn't seem to be quite like it.

He is only worried about one thing now, how to write this report, so that he can not only report the matter truthfully, but also make the successive defeats of these three negotiations look less embarrassing......