Building Trust in the Quantum Cloud with Physical Unclonable Functions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum physical unclonable function (Q-PUF) for secure authentication in quantum cloud computing, utilizing intrinsic device properties and fuzzy extractors to generate stable cryptographic keys.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum PUF design based on frequency fingerprints of transmon qubits, with prototypes on IBM devices and scalable challenge-response mechanisms.

Findings

Successfully implemented Q-PUF on IBM quantum devices

Demonstrated stable cryptographic keys despite measurement noise

Outlined extensions to other quantum hardware platforms

Abstract

As cloud-based quantum computing expands, securing access to quantum hardware is increasingly critical. We present an authentication protocol that leverages intrinsic quantum device properties to construct Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (Q-PUFs). Using frequency fingerprints from fixed-frequency transmon qubits, we prototype our approach on IBM quantum devices with both real and simulated data. We employ fuzzy extractors to generate stable cryptographic keys that tolerate measurement noise and conceal raw hardware data. To support scalability, we introduce q tuples (qubit subsets) that enable challenge response generation for strong PUF behavior. We also outline extensions to neutral atom platforms and propose future directions including logical Q-PUFs. Our work lays the groundwork for secure, hardware-rooted authentication in hybrid quantum-classical systems.