Orange Business and Toshiba launch France’s first commercial quantum-safe network in Paris

June 11, 2025 08:56 AM

Orange Business and Toshiba Europe have unveiled the first commercial quantum-safe network service in France, marking a major milestone in the country’s cybersecurity landscape.

The new Orange Quantum Defender service is now live in the greater Paris area and is designed to protect businesses from the emerging threat of quantum computing-enabled cyberattacks.

Built on Toshiba’s Quantum Safe Networking technology, the service combines Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) with Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to deliver a robust, multi-layered defence for sensitive data.

This is particularly crucial for industries with high trust requirements such as finance, healthcare, and government, which are increasingly vulnerable to "store now, decrypt later" attacks. These attacks involve harvesting encrypted data today in hopes of decrypting it with future quantum capabilities.

A leading French financial institution has already connected several of its sites to the new network, gaining access to a secure, high-speed infrastructure designed to safeguard critical financial information.

“We are thrilled to launch Orange Quantum Defender – a first-of-its-kind service in France,” said Aliette Mousnier-Lompré, CEO of Orange Business.

“This is a significant step in the Orange multi-layer quantum-safe networking strategy, as we help our enterprise customers respond to the growing and evolving security threats from quantum computing.

“Built on the robust technology by Toshiba, we are not just protecting sensitive data today; we are prepared and ready to partner with our customers for a secure and resilient future.”

The service builds on years of collaborative testing between Orange and Toshiba, which demonstrated that QKD can function effectively over existing fibre networks without compromising performance. This advancement not only lowers deployment costs but also accelerates adoption by enterprises.

“The quantum age isn’t just some fringe concept anymore, and large organisations are on the frontline when it comes to the dangers posed by powerful quantum computers,” added Hiroshi Tsukino, Corporate VP of Toshiba Corporation.

“I’m excited to now jointly launch the first commercial solution that can deliver a quantum-safe future for organisations in Paris.”