Researchers in Berlin have teleported quantum data across a 19-mile loop of commercial fiber in one of the most advanced quantum networking tests on regular telecommunications infrastructure.
The achievement, made in January 2026, was carried out by T-Labs, Deutsche Telekom’s research and development division, in collaboration with Qunnect, a quantum networking company based in Brooklyn, New York.
Deutsche Telekom stated that the teleportation ran alongside regular data traffic on the same metro fiber cables, showcasing that future quantum services could coexist with today’s city networks.
The experiment used Qunnect’s commercial entanglement distribution hardware and Deutsche Telekom’s quantum infrastructure in Berlin. “Our fiber optic network is quantum ready,” Abdu Mudesir, Telekom’s executive board member for product and technology, pointed out.
A live quantum demo
Quantum teleportation is a technique for transferring quantum information from a sender at one location to a receiver at another. It enables secure long-distance data transfer without moving the particles themselves.
Instead of physically sending a particle, the process reproduces its quantum state at the receiving end using previously shared entanglement. It opens the door to quantum cryptography, distributed computing, secure cloud services, quantum data centers, as well as high-precision sensor networks.
For the trial, the team employed a weak coherent source to generate qubits over a 19-mile (30-kilometer) fiber loop connecting T-Lab’s Quantum Lab to a node on the Berlin fiber testbed. They utilized Qunnect’s Carina entanglement distribution platform capable of producing paired photons for teleportation.
The entangled photons traveled through buried and aerial fiber in Berlin. At the same time, an automated system stabilized them against temperature shifts and vibrations. It enabled high-rate, high-fidelity transport of quantum bits between network nodes.
“Teleportation is a novel tool for moving information around networks leveraging quantum physics,” Mael Flament, Qunnect CTO, explained. “We are showing the building blocks of teleportation can operate inside a real network, in real racks, under operator control, advancing it from a laboratory experiment to something a telecommunications provider can deploy.”
Strong performance results
Despite the harsh environmental conditions, the demonstration reached a peak fidelity of 95 percent and an average accuracy of 90 percent. The teleportation part used a wavelength of 795 nanometers, which is essential for platforms like neutral-atom quantum computers, atomic clocks, and quantum sensors.
As per Mudesir, quantum teleportation lays the groundwork for linking quantum computers across distances and pooling their computing power. “This will create the next generation of secure communication and a building block for Europe’s technological sovereignty,” he concluded in a press release.
The experiment builds on a series of earlier field trials that tested the stability of entangled-photon distribution across Berlin’s metro network. This latest result demonstrated the first operator-ready configuration, with hardware operating in standard network racks under realistic conditions.
Qunnect, Deutsche Telekom, and other partners will extend this demonstration to multi-node teleportation configurations. They also plan to expand the distance across which they will transfer quantum states. The expansion will test broader deployment and next-generation use cases in metro carrier networks.