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arXiv · 2609.35358

Hybrid QKD-PQC Network Emulation through Automated and Scalable Cloud-Native Orchestration

Iván Melijosa·Javier Pérez·Borja Nogales·Iván Vidal·Francisco Valera
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Abstract

The ongoing transition toward quantum-safe networking has motivated the development of hybrid network architectures integrating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). However, the experimental evaluation of hybrid QKD-PQC network architectures remains constrained by the high cost and limited accessibility of quantum hardware, as well as by the limited support for hybrid QKD-PQC networks in existing emulation platforms. Quditto is an open-source emulation platform originally designed for QKD networks that enables cost-effective and reproducible experimentation without requiring dedicated physical quantum infrastructure. Building on this foundation, this work presents Quditto as a hybrid QKD-PQC network emulation platform featuring automated and scalable cloud-native orchestration. The proposed platform introduces four principal contributions: a cloud-native orchestrator enabling fully automated infrastructure deployment across cloud and multi-cluster environments; an optimized provisioning workflow enabling large-scale quantum-safe network emulation; native integration of post-quantum nodes enabling unified emulation of hybrid QKD-PQC networks; and a secure key management module providing persistent and access-controlled storage of cryptographic material. Experimental validation demonstrates sublinear orchestration-time scaling with network size and successful end-to-end hybrid QKD-PQC key establishment on a representative spine-leaf deployment, thereby enabling the systematic evaluation of quantum-safe networking mechanisms in large-scale heterogeneous network environments.

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Iván Melijosa, Javier Pérez, Borja Nogales, Iván Vidal, Francisco Valera. 2026-09-28. Hybrid QKD-PQC Network Emulation through Automated and Scalable Cloud-Native Orchestration. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.35358

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