Reporter ｜He Jipai Yan Zi
edited ｜Yan Zi
The first trading day after the long holiday, there was a little red in the 30,000 green cluster. A technology company in Anhui, Guodun Quantum, rose sharply at the opening, while the market was sluggish, and it still rose 4.75% at the close.
This company has good news.
On October 4, this year's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scholars in recognition of their contributions to quantum information science . One of the winners, Professor Anton Salinger, is a supervisor of Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and founder of Guodun Quantum.
Pan Jianwei was very excited when he learned that the instructor won the award. He introduced: "The awards committee mentioned four quantum communication experimental articles by my mentor Anton Salinger. I am the first author of two of them and the second author of the two."
Pan Jianwei is known as the "father of Chinese quantum". In 2009, he and many teachers and students of the University of Science and Technology of China founded Guodun Quantum in Hefei.
The low-key seed player walked to the front.
Preliminary practical
Three professors won the award this time due to the quantum entanglement theory.
In microscopic world , quantum entanglement refers to the entanglement relationship between two microscopic particles , just like a pair of telepathy twins. No matter how far apart the two are, when one of the people's states changes, the other's states will also change.
A plot that everyone is more familiar with is that in the book " Three-body ", the Three-body man mastered the quantum entanglement technology , and achieved ultra-distance communication with the earth by controlling protons. The scenes in
science fiction novels are not yet implemented at this stage. The current industrial chain is relatively mature. Quantum confidential communication.
quantum is the smallest unit of energy and momentum. Simply put, a form that matter is so small that it cannot be even smaller is quantum, such as electrons, photons, . This determines that quantum is easily disturbed.
For example, A throws a "quantum" at B. During the transmission process, as long as someone eavesdrops on the quantum posture, the quantum posture will change and B will discover it immediately.
This means that quantum confidential communication has absolute security. An unknown quantum state cannot be used to peek without leaving any trace during transmission.
Like classic communication, quantum confidential communication also requires information transmission channels, sending and receiving devices, etc.
Currently, my country's quantum confidential communication industry chain is relatively mature, and its upstream is mainly components and core equipment; the midstream is mainly technical service providers, operators, etc.; the downstream is mainly security applications, reaching the B/C-end consumer group.
Quantum confidential communication is widely used in government affairs, finance, national defense and other industries. In terms of business model, Guodun Quantum mainly achieves profitability by selling products and services to quantum confidential communication network system integrators.
For example, Guodun Quantum and China Telecom cooperate to launch the first "Quantum Secret Word" commercial product, a dual-mode walkie-talkie based on quantum security keys for use in the Winter Paralympic Games in early 2022.
Backed by the University of Science and Technology
To understand Guodun Quantum, you can't avoid the University of Science and Technology .
This is a typical Chinese Academy of Sciences’ department enterprise. Its core technology originated from the University of Science and Technology. Many senior executives have backgrounds in the University of Science and Technology. The founder Pan Jianwei is still the executive vice president of the University of Science and Technology.University of Science and Technology of China is also the company's controlling shareholder and second largest supplier.
thin-framed glasses, hair is partial, and often wears light-colored shirts. Looking at the appearance alone, Pan Jianwei is more like a bookish university professor than a helmsman of a technology company.
As the number one natural person shareholder of Guodun Information, although Pan Jianwei is a "soul figure", he has not worked in the company and participated in technology research and development. The key positions are held by two of his students, one of the actual controllers of the company and the chairman of the board, and the other is Zhao Yong, who serves as vice chairman.
Not many ordinary people know about Guodian. In fact, this company can be seen in many major quantum confidential communication backbone networks, metropolitan network , and LAN construction projects.
For example, in 2017, the world's first quantum confidential communication trunk line " Beijing-Shanghai trunk line ", was opened with a total length of more than 2,000 kilometers. Guodun is an important participant.
According to the company, as of the end of 2021, most of the practical optical fiber quantum confidential communication networks that have been built in my country use products provided by Guodun and are in online operation.
Because the business is mostly in government information, financial business, mobile communication and other fields, Guodun has the risk of customer concentration.
The sales of the company's top five customers account for more than 70% of its revenue all year round. Shenzhou Digital is its major customer for many years.
In recent years, Guodun has increased its market expansion efforts and joined hands with Telecom , iFLYTEK, Meiling Electrical Appliances and other companies to develop software and hardware products that are convenient for terminal access, such as "quantum secret words", "quantum security intelligent gas meter ", "quantum encryption intelligent office book".
Crisis coexist
Quantum technology has moved from laboratory to application implementation, and it needs to go through the stages of basic research, key technology research and development, engineering integration and verification, and test the capabilities of the enterprise.
Guodun is accelerating its pace to develop key technologies such as free space quantum communication technology, high-integration technology, new QKD protocols, etc. In accordance with the concept of " pre-research generation, development generation, and production generation", it will ensure market share on the one hand and product and technology iteration on the other hand.
Japanese Toshiba once predicted that the global quantum confidential communications (QKD) market is expected to develop from 12.279 billion yuan in 2020 to about 122.787 billion yuan in 2035. Guodun is expected to gain more market share.
But the industry is very new, and many products are still in the promotion period.
, which has been established for 13 years, is not large in size. Its revenue was 179 million yuan last year, and its revenue in the first half of 2022 was only 14.21 million yuan. The company explained that due to the impact of the epidemic, the pace of promotion of some projects and order execution have slowed down.
plus quantum communication as a strategic cutting-edge technology, with fierce international competition and Guodun Information also affected.
In November last year, Guodun Information and its subsidiaries were included in the "entity list" by the United States, which restricted the procurement of two fundraising projects, the "Quantum Communication Network Equipment Project" and the "R&D Center Construction Project".
Company said that the production, sales and services of existing products are controllable due to the "entity list", but at this stage, some of the company's high-end instruments still depend on external imports, which may have adverse effects on subsequent operations.
The more pressure comes, the better time to promote domestic substitution. Guodun’s core product, quantum key distribution equipment, has completed all independent research and development verification and prototype design of components. Peng Chengzhi, chairman of Guodun Quantum, once said, "Only quantum is no longer mysterious, it means that technology is really going to thousands of households."
This wave of "popular science" in the Nobel Prize has pushed quantum technology forward.
