USC’s Office of Research and Innovation (OORI) strives to maximize the support provided to USC faculty in their efforts relating to federal funding and grant opportunities. OORI’s Research Strategy & Development (RSD) sub-unit provides more granular support in the spirit of this objective, working with faculty members at all stages of the grant application lifecycle to assist in the administrative and strategic conceptualization and submission of USC-led efforts.
As such, following a collaborative effort involving RSD personnel, we are thrilled to announce the recent $18M award made by the Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI)-led proposal, entitled Quantum Augmented Network (QuANET).
QuANET is led by Stephen Schwab, MS, Senior Supervising Computer Scientist, Research Director for Strategic Directions for Networking and Cybersecurity Division, and Distinguished Principal Scientist at USC ISI; Jonathan Habif, PhD, Research Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at USC Viterbi; and John Wroclawski, MS, Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives at USC ISI.
RSD personnel worked with members of the USC team throughout phases of the proposal development lifecycle to inform and guide the submission in a successful direction that fully aligned with programmatic objectives. Involvement began during the preliminary discussion phases – RSD personnel alerted team members of the opportunity’s initial release, and remained engaged in a support-based role through submission.
DARPA’s QuANET program seeks to develop quantum-augmented networks that add novel security and covertness properties inherent in quantum communications to classical, non-quantum network infrastructures that trade security against interoperability. QuANET will develop the hardware, protocols, and software tools required for missions and critical infrastructure, enabling the first viable transition strategy to operationalize quantum communications. QuANET aims to implement the world’s first operationally fielded quantum-augmented network.