The team at Qunnect, including Stony Brook University alumni Mehdi Namazi, PhD '18, chief science officer (first row, second from right), and Mael Flament, MS '19, chief technology officer (first row, third from left).

When physicist Eden Figueroa talks about the origins of Qunnect, he does not begin with patents or the science behind the technology. He talks about graduate students.

Figueroa, Endowed Presidential Professor of Physics and director of the Center for Distributed Quantum Processing, remembers long hours inside his laboratory in the basement of the Stony Brook University Physics building, where researchers worked around optical tables covered in lasers, mirrors and glass cells filled with atoms, attempting to answer a question that many scientists in the field considered nearly impossible to solve: Could quantum memory work at room temperature?

At the time, most quantum technologies relied on equipment cooled to temperatures colder than outer space, infrastructure that was massive, expensive and impractical for widespread use. "Our goal was to try to do the same quantum memory processes that can be driven at these low temperatures, but come up with a way to do it at room temperature," Figueroa said.

Years later, that research has evolved into Qunnect, a quantum networking company helping build infrastructure for what scientists describe as the future quantum internet.

The company - co-founded by Figueroa along with Stony Brook alumni Mehdi Namazi, PhD '18, Qunnect chief science officer, and Mael Flament, MS '19, chief technology officer - was built around technology developed at Stony Brook University and patented by the trio. Today, its systems are being deployed on quantum networking testbeds across New York City, Long Island and Europe.

For Stony Brook, Qunnect has become an example of how student-driven university research can transform into a company emerging as a leader in one of the world's fastest-growing scientific fields.

The roots of Qunnect trace back to the Quantum Information Technology Laboratory at Stony Brook, where Figueroa and his students were exploring how quantum information could be stored, manipulated and transmitted.

Quantum communication relies on photons, individual particles of light that can carry encoded information. Unlike traditional communication systems, quantum networks have the potential to detect eavesdropping immediately, making them attractive for applications involving cybersecurity, finance, defense and advanced computing.

But there was a major obstacle; most quantum devices required ultra-cold environments approaching absolute zero. Those conditions made systems difficult to scale and nearly impossible to deploy widely.

From left to right: Mehdi Namazi, Mael Flament, and Eden Figueroa in the laboratory in 2018.

Figueroa believed room-temperature systems were possible, and Namazi, then a doctoral student at Stony Brook, became deeply involved in the work. "One of the motivations for forming the company was the opportunity to assemble experts from engineering and software development to realize a true 'product' from my PhD work," Namazi said.

In its earliest years, the company focused heavily on the challenge of long-distance quantum networking. "When Qunnect was first founded, Mael and I were very focused on developing the memory to support long-distance networking," Namazi said. "The memory was at the core of a quantum repeater."

Quantum repeaters are designed to help relay fragile quantum information across large distances without losing the entangled states carrying that data. The problem was that quantum memory systems remained extraordinarily difficult to deploy outside laboratory environments.

"Despite all the research efforts on different types of memory technologies at universities across the world, the performance specs of quantum memories are still insufficient for routine integration in quantum networks," Namazi said.

Together with collaborators in the lab, the team developed a room-temperature quantum memory capable of storing and retrieving quantum states with remarkably low noise levels. The breakthrough led to patents, research papers and growing interest from the scientific community.

"It was actually really incredible that despite the fact that many groups were working on this, we were granted that patent," Figueroa said. "We were the first to make that work in the way that we wanted to do it."

The technology had commercial potential. As the team explored how to move the research beyond academia, they participated in the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps™)entrepreneurial training program, where they learned how to translate these scientific concepts into language investors and industry leaders could understand.

It encouraged the researchers to think less like physicists and more like entrepreneurs, focusing not only on the science itself, but on the real-world problems the technology could solve.

Qunnect was founded to commercialize that research and help bring quantum networking closer to real-world deployment.

The company initially operated from Stony Brook University's Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT), where it continued refining its technology while building partnerships and securing funding, support critical to the company's early growth.

"Stony Brook gave us an environment where research and innovation could happen side-by-side," Figueroa said. "We had access to students, collaborators, facilities and a community that believed in pushing these ideas forward."

One of Qunnect's biggest contributions has been its focus on practical deployment. Instead of designing systems that function only in isolated laboratory conditions, the company has worked to create quantum networking devices that can operate on existing telecommunications infrastructure. This approach has helped distinguish the company from others within the quantum technology sector.

In fact, founders Flament and Namazi geared their course work and projects at Stony Brook toward the very techniques and requirements of turning the breakthroughs made in the lab into actual products the company could eventually sell. Namazi's dissertation focused on creating the memory in its lab or tabletop form. Flament's master's thesis focused on the creation of a prototype, rack-mounted instrument-the form required to sell the device commercially.

Qunnect's technologies now include quantum memories, entangled photon sources and networking devices designed to support long-distance quantum communication.

The company's GothamQ project, a quantum networking testbed spanning parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, uses underground fiber optic lines similar to those already supporting today's internet. The goal is to demonstrate that quantum networking technologies can function reliably in urban environments affected by vibrations, temperature fluctuations and other real-world conditions.

Researchers believe these kinds of systems could eventually connect future quantum computers, enable highly secure communication networks and create entirely new forms of information sharing. Governments and technology companies around the world are investing heavily in quantum communication research, viewing the technology as the future of cybersecurity and advanced computing.

For Qunnect CEO Noel Goddard, the long-term importance of the technology is tied directly to growing concerns about cybersecurity. "All of our transactions are currently protected by RSA/ECC encryption, a standard developed decades ago," Goddard said. "As computers get more powerful, mathematically-based encryption gets more vulnerable."

Quantum networking, she said, approaches security differently.

"Quantum encryption physically encrypts the information into the quantum state of a particle," Goddard said. "If an eavesdropper tampers in any way with the system, it is detectable. Moreover, they cannot physically cover their tracks."

Qunnect has received support from organizations including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Air Force. The company has also secured millions in venture capital funding to expand its operations and accelerate development.

In 2021, the company announced the sale of the world's first commercial quantum memory to Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). "Qu-MEM was the first quantum memory to be sold commercially, worldwide," Goddard said. "The early prototype development and commercialization were supported by a Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, so it was only fitting that BNL became the first customer."

Goddard said the company's room-temperature design helped distinguish it from other quantum memory systems still dependent on complex cooling infrastructure. "Quantum networks need to have instrumentation remotely deployed in places that could never support extreme cooling," she said. "This feature enables feasible scalability."

Still, Qunnect leaders say the science remains at the center of the mission. As the broader quantum networking industry evolved, the company adapted its strategy. "We pivoted to focus on a product suite to support metro-scale networking, which became the full stack Carina system we sell today," Namazi said. "In the background, we have continued to improve the memory technology to a level where it can be integrated into the stack of our future rack systems."

The company now develops a wider suite of networking hardware designed to support secure quantum communication using existing telecommunications infrastructure. "We are at an important turning point in the field," Namazi said. "Qunnect's Carina hardware has been deployed on academic, government and industry testbeds in the U.S. and EU."

Researchers believe these systems could eventually support quantum-secure banking transactions, healthcare communications, power grid systems and future quantum computing networks. "We are trying to engineer systems that are scalable and practical," Namazi said. "The vision is to create field-stable devices that enable long-distance quantum-secure communication using existing infrastructure."

Figueroa, who holds a joint appointment with BNL, said the partnership between Stony Brook and BNL helped accelerate progress in quantum information science. "The connection between Brookhaven and Stony Brook is a natural one," he said. "When you combine expertise, infrastructure and student talent, you can move very quickly."

Much of the work still feels remarkably personal to Figueroa. He remembers the early years spent experimenting with fragile systems alongside graduate students who would later become entrepreneurs helping shape the future of quantum networking.

Today, he sees Qunnect as part of a growing pipeline connecting student research, entrepreneurship and large-scale scientific collaboration.

The university's growing quantum ecosystem, developed through collaborations involving BNL, Columbia University, Yale University and Qunnect, is helping establish New York as a major hub for quantum networking research.

Last year, the Stony Brook-led SkyQNet network merged with Qunnect's GothamQ network in New York City, creating what Figueroa described as the world's largest interregional quantum network.

"We now have networks all across New York City, all across Long Island," Figueroa said. "That is the largest interregional quantum network in the world right now."

Looking ahead, Figueroa said he hopes Qunnect becomes only the beginning of a much larger wave of student-driven innovation emerging from Stony Brook. He sees the company as proof that graduate students working inside university laboratories can perform research that leads to new advances.

"You train students to think creatively and solve hard problems," Figueroa said. "And sometimes they become the people who help create entirely new industries."

- Beth Squire