Quantum information science is undergoing a fast-developing and deepening period, thus maintaining the nation’s competitiveness in the fierce international competition demands more core technological breakthroughs to be made and disciplinary to be further integrated, Pan Jianwei, a leading Chinese quantum scientist, made the remark during a press conference on political advisors' performance of duties in the new era in the second session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, March 10, 2019. 

Pan, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), also member of the CPPCC National Committee, said the top-level design of national S&T development strategies and the support from ministries, research institutions and enterprises are crucial for pushing forward the quantum information science. And the CPPCC provides for him a major platform to voice out recommendations and contribute to China’s scientific causes.

Hailed for leading China to the forefront of long-distance quantum communication, Pan Jianwei harnessed quantum laws to transmit information securely. He has been called the "father of quantum". 

Under his instruction, the world's first quantum experiment satellite, Micius, was successfully launched in August 2016 as part of the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale international research project, making China the first country to achieve quantum communication between a satellite and the Earth. The communication carried through this satellite cannot be hacked, nor can it be intercepted by malicious actors.

During the interview, Pan introduced the recent development of Micius and his plans in an easy-to-understand way. “Micius outperformed our expectation. It only took several months to complete the experiments that were planned to be finished in two years,” explained Pan. In the past two years, they have increased satellite-to-earth quantum key distribution by 40 times, enabling the satellite to transmit 400,000 encryption keys in just a second.

Due to the interference from the sun, the satellite can only function at night. Pan’s team is masterminding a medium-high-earth-orbit quantum communication satellite able to offer services around the clock in the future, making it possible to generate encryption keys at any time.

To better the public’s understanding of the importance of quantum communication, the scientist shared a few real-world applications of the technology, “Quantum communication is not only important for enhancing a country's information security, but it also means a lot to everyday life. Your bank data and passwords must be kept from divulged. The control system of unmanned vehicles has to be protected from hacking to ensure driving safety. And the quantum communication can to a large extend enhance the secured information transmitting.”

Pan hopes that the coverage of quantum communication technology be expanded and the cost lowered in the future so that the public can share its benefits.

Zhejiang New Plus

An aficionado of climbing, a big fan of Einstein and an enthusiastic explorer of quantum and nature, he is Pan Jianwei, a fellow townsman hailed from Dongyang of Zhejiang Province. The scientist got his nickname Robert, homophonic after Albert Einstein, while he was still a school boy. The name Robert hinted his way to the world of physics and the road to become the leading scientist in the world.

In 1987 he entered the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), a member of the C9 League, China's equivalent of the Ivy League, from which he started to come into contact with quantum mechanics. In the beginning the profound science confused him, and he almost failed in the midterm exam on quantum mechanics. This did not extinguish his curiosity over quantum. After graduated with master’s degree in USTC, he went to Austria to do his PhD at the University of Innsbruck, studying with Anton Zeilinger, a renowned quantum physicist. 

During his career in Austria as a PhD student and later as a senior scientist, Pan and his colleagues achieved a seminal series of breakthroughs in quantum communication. His first quantum teleportation experiment findings reported in 1997 was listed by Nature as one of the 21 classical papers on physics in 20th Century.

Pan performed the first entanglement swapping experiments, establishing the scientific possibility of transferring quantum states of one object to another over arbitrarily long distances in a disembodied way, ie without physically transporting the object itself.

Having achieved scientific stardom as much for his world-leading research in the quantum communication field, not only did Pan earn respect from Chinese colleagues, but he also won applause from overseas competitors.

He was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011 and the World Academy of Sciences in 2012. When he was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he was only 41 - the youngest academician at that time. He won the International Quantum Communication Award in 2012. In 2014, he was appointed Vice President of the University of Science and Technology of China. His team's work on double quantum-teleportation was selected as the Physics World Top Breakthrough of the Year in 2015. In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping handed the State Natural Science Award (first class) to a team of quantum physicists led by Pan Jianwei. In 2017, the journal Nature named Pan Jianwei among the top 10 people who mattered in the year, with the label "Father of quantum".

(Executive Editor: Yongliu He)