Hard to imagine, but there was a time when the internet sounded basically impossible to most people.
Talking to someone across the world instantly? Accessing information in seconds? Handling your banking from your living room?
In 1990, before the internet was the internet, those concepts probably landed somewhere between science fiction and, well, magic.
Quantum feels a little like that right now for a lot of us.
McKinsey & Company projects quantum technologies will grow into a nearly $100 billion global market by 2035, and investment continues climbing as governments, universities, and companies race to figure out what problems quantum technology will eventually help solve. (And if you’re new here, this earlier post explores some of those possibilities.)
Clearly, something big is happening. But if you find yourself nodding politely through conversations about quantum while wondering, “Okay, but… what’s the holdup?” you’re not alone.
Because if quantum is about to change everything, what are we waiting on?
Turns out, a major part of the answer is distance.
So, why is distance such a problem?
To be clear, quantum technologies do work. That’s an important place to start, because the issue is not whether the science is real – it is. Researchers can already send quantum information and operate small quantum networks in controlled environments.
The problem is scale. More specifically, quantum information is extremely fragile once it starts traveling over distance.
In today’s connected world, information moves constantly across cities, states, and continents in the form of “signals.” Our text messages, bank transactions, GPS directions, Netflix streams, and emails all travel through networks built to move information across long distances quickly and reliably, often through long fiber-optic cables underground as flashes of light. Those signals are generally stable, and when they weaken, we have infrastructure capable of boosting them along the way.
Quantum doesn’t work like that.
Quantum systems also use light, but the information they carry is far more fragile. Interference, environmental changes, vibration, temperature shifts, or simply traveling too far can disrupt the signal itself. And unlike traditional networks, you can’t just boost the signal once it weakens. If you try, you destroy the quantum information in the process.
Think of quantum signals like trying to carry a soap bubble across a football field during a windstorm.
The result? One of the biggest bottlenecks in the entire field. Until quantum information can travel longer distances reliably, quantum systems remain limited to smaller environments, shorter networks, and highly controlled conditions.
This is a systems problem.
So, can’t we just make the quantum signals stronger? Not exactly. Quantum is extremely finicky, and “simple” solutions tend to stop being simple pretty quickly.
It’s more complicated than that because the challenge isn’t just “fixing” an isolated piece of technology. Researchers are trying to build systems capable of moving fragile quantum information across distance without destroying it in the process – this is the hard part. .
Temperature shifts matter. Vibration matters. Timing matters. The tiniest environmental changes can determine whether a quantum signal survives.
Which is exactly why so much of this work is still happening inside highly controlled lab environments (remember, soap bubbles in a windstorm). Before quantum systems can operate across large-scale networks reliably, researchers first have to understand how to keep them stable long enough to survive the trip.
There are different approaches to addressing the distance challenge. In Chicago, for example, researchers are focused on preserving fragile quantum information itself, developing techniques designed to keep quantum signals stable for longer periods of time and across greater distances. Developing and testing these techniques still requires carefully controlled environments because quantum systems are so sensitive, but these advances are considered essential to building reliable long-distance quantum networks.
The technology is advancing, but this is still an unsolved problem. Very few places have the infrastructure, network access, technical capability, and operating conditions required to make substantial progress on challenges like this.
Eventually, quantum systems have to operate outside the lab.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) has emerged as a strategically important contributor to solving one of the field’s hardest operational challenges.
While some researchers are focused on helping fragile quantum information survive longer and travel farther, UTC Quantum Center researchers focus more heavily on the operational side of the distance challenge, answering questions like:
What actually happens when quantum systems operate outside the lab in the real world? How do researchers keep fragile quantum information stable once interference, vibration, timing fluctuations, and environmental instability become part of the equation?
UTC became the first American university connected to a commercially available quantum network through EPB’s fiber infrastructure – creating opportunities for infrastructure-based quantum research few universities are currently positioned to pursue.
One of the operational realities UTC has been actively working through is something called “polarization drift,” which is when the light carrying quantum information slowly changes orientation as it travels through fiber. Inside a lab, researchers can control those systems. But once quantum signals begin moving across real city infrastructure, something as simple as vibration from traffic or even temperature changes can interfere. Operational understanding around managing challenges like polarization drift outside the lab is still relatively rare across the field, but UTC researchers, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a detailed understanding of how these environmental conditions impact live quantum systems.
Through Chattanooga’s fiber infrastructure, UTC researchers have spent years learning what keeps systems stable, where problems begin to emerge, and how to manage those challenges outside the lab.
UTC researchers have already demonstrated quantum networking between multiple connected locations across active infrastructure, proving these systems can operate under deployed conditions. But moving quantum systems into reliable large-scale operation is a very different challenge, and it’s exactly the kind of challenge UTC researchers are prepared to address.
This experience matters because solving the distance challenge requires environments capable of moving quantum systems beyond controlled research and into reliable real-world operation. Chattanooga is quickly becoming one of those environments, and UTC is uniquely positioned to help close the gap between successful demonstrations and practical large-scale quantum networking.
The race to quantum reality is on.
Solving the distance challenge starts to unlock many of the quantum capabilities we keep hearing about – stronger cybersecurity, smarter infrastructure systems, more powerful computing, and entirely new ways for information to move securely across networks.
Quantum systems do work. The challenge is making them work reliably across real infrastructure and real distance.
This is part of what makes Chattanooga so important in the quantum conversation.
Most cities do not already have a commercially available quantum network operating across real infrastructure. Most universities are not actively studying how quantum systems behave across deployed city-scale fiber environments. And most regions do not have this level of alignment between research institutions, advanced infrastructure, public utilities, industry partners, and national laboratory expertise all working within the same ecosystem.
Chattanooga does.
From UTC’s research and hands-on testing to EPB’s infrastructure and accessible quantum network, researchers are advancing their understanding of how quantum systems function in the real world. This type of operational experience makes all the difference.
Eventually, quantum will stop sounding like magic and start feeling as normal as the internet does today. The race to reach that moment is already underway. Chattanooga is pushing quantum closer to reality every day.
Learn more
Why quantum? Why now? And why UTC?
