Tuesday Xairos gave the opening keynote at the ATIS Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems conference. We introduced the audience to our Quantum Time Transfer technology and our plans to build a global resilient PNT service.

WSTS brings together the world's most innovative PNT companies (including Meta, IBM, NTT, Epson, Safran, Telus, NIST, and NICT) to collaborate on solving timing challenges in telecommunications, data centers, power grids, and financial networks.

One key problem identified in almost every presentation: a resilient GPS alternative is needed ASAP! Look at the agenda to see for yourself: https://wsts.atis.org/2023-agenda/

When the British Empire was at its peak, a small island with only 2.5% of the world population held sway over a quarter of the world.
They achieved this through a navy that dominated the seas thanks, in part, to the marine chronometer.

This accurate timepiece revolutionized navigation and enabled the Age of Discovery by solving the longitude problem.
Fast forward a century to the beginnings of GPS.
What started as an experiment in creating “lighthouses in the sky” worked so well that it was made available for civilian use right as networks were moving from analog to digital and needed a clock.
This happy accident created the "largest venture outcome in history” and trillions of dollars of economic benefit.
It is now embedded in all aspects of our modern world: travel, communications, financial transactions, and power grids all rely on it.

But GPS, and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), have a limit.
Their signals don’t work well in urban canyons and buildings, which limits the advancement of self-driving vehicles, delivery drones, industrial robots, and disaggregated networks.
Better timing still has the potential to unlock new opportunities - even on the moon.

Happy to announce that Xairos is the newest member of the Open PNT Industry Alliance (OPIA), an organization “created to strengthen economic and national security by supporting government efforts to accelerate the implementation of backup positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities for critical infrastructure.”

OPIA is one of a number of organizations pushing for a GPS alternative:

• Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation – advocacy group with the goal of “encouraging additional resilient services will protect critical infrastructure and make the world a safer place.”
• Time Appliances Project – META-led organization that believes that “time is a key element to get the highest efficiency in a distributed system.”
• Institute of Navigation - not-for-profit organization advancing Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) and host of the Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications meeting (Xairos is an invited speaker)
• Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) – advocate for timing in telecommunication networks and host of the Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems (Xairos is an invited keynote speaker).
• Royal Institute of Navigation – UK-based with global members dedicated to navigation, and host of the recent LEO PNT Seminar attended by Xairos.

These groups all share the same concern: that GPS is a single point of failure for our modern world.

A better, more resilient, alternative is needed.

Over 60 years ago the US military gave birth to GPS as an experiment to test “lighthouses in the sky.”

It turned out to be so successful that they were (reluctantly) made available for civilian use in the 1980s.

The timing was perfect.

Networks were just moving from analog to digital and needed a reference clock to efficiently route these digital bits.

GPS has since turned into the "largest venture outcome in history", spawning 764 new companies and trillions of dollars of economic benefit.

But it became a victim of its own success.

GPS is now a single-point of failure for all travel, communications, financial transactions, and even power grids.

The impact of a sustained outage would be devastating – consider the near meltdown of January 26, 2016.

This was identified as a problem in the infamous Volpe Report over two decades ago.

Since then, there has been a lot of talk, but no action – at least in the US.

China, Russia, Europe, and Japan have all built their own GPS replacement, and there are commercial alternatives in work.

But Xairos is different.

It isn’t just our disruptive quantum technology.

It is the new architecture that it enables, that will be more secure, resilient, accurate – and scalable.

The difference is stark - check out this video to learn more.

GPS (and systems like this) will always be around for navigation on the open road.

But we address new markets that they can’t reach:

• Delivery drones and flying taxis in urban canyons
• Self-driving vehicles in tunnels and parking garages
• Automated robots in warehouses and factories
• 6G networks that needs more antenna elements and femtocells
• Distributed databases that are moving from hyperscale data centers to POPs  
• Power grids that will run more efficiently with synchronized PMUs

In your home there is a common piece of electronics that has enormous potential. It has the ability to:

1. Detect and locate people behind walls.
2. Forecast the weather.
3. Provide positioning for vehicles, robots, drones, and even your lost keys.
4. Sense an impending earthquake.

And you are probably using it right now to read this newsletter: your wi-fi router. 

But it needs to be accurately synchronized to unlock this potential. 

With accurate time synchronization, the time of flight of signals can be accurately calculated. This, in turn, helps detect the presence of people and water vapor in the air. Time of flight can also be used to calculate distance, and therefore the position, of sensors and moving vehicles. 

Better timing synchronization is the key to unlocking potential in existing infrastructure. It can help power grids and data centers run more efficiently, reducing carbon emissions. It also can be used to unlock spectral efficiency and new applications in cell networks. 

And it doesn't require a wholesale change to infrastructure – after all, you already have a wi-fi router.

Check out the full newsletter to learn more about:

• Why those Northern Lights could be a harbinger of doom.
• Our plans for PNT conferences and organizations like the Open PNT Industry Alliance.
• The latest news about GPS outages across Europe thanks to you-know-who. 

We're excited to see our community come in and invest in Xairos!Our Insiders have invested a total of $15,250 into the offering to date!We hope you join in as well! Invest in Xairos (https://www.startengine.com/offering/xairossystems)!

A city.

Most definitions of a Smart City talk about a city that leverages connectivity for the Internet of Things (IOT), transportation, sustainability, and energy usage.

But this technology already exists.

So what is the city of the future really lacking? This:

Self-driving vehicles, flying taxis, and delivery drones can reduce traffic and emissions - and stress for commuters.

But this won't happen without better navigation infrastructure.

Vehicles are already being outfitted with cameras and lidar for proximity sensors.

But this is for spatial awareness to prevent collisions - they don't provide guidance.

GPS and other space-based position, navigation and timing (PNT) systems work well on the open highway, but can’t provide effective navigation in urban canyons, tunnels, and parking garages.

One solution was described in 2008 by Steve Jobs: in large cities, we are surrounded by wi-fi routers and cell towers that are natural beacons.

The next step is to provide position and timing over these beacons as part of a larger mobility network.

But these beacons need to be accurately – and securely – synchronized.

Timing not only impacts the position accuracy, but in a future of flying cars you don’t want infrastructure that can be easily hijacked.

One year ago Russia shocked the world by invading Ukraine.

When the invasion started, analysts expected them to immediately jam GPS signals.

After all, Russia is an expert in this, and it was their modus operandi.

There has been jamming, though not as widespread or effective as expected.

Maybe because they also need GPS, they were holding back, or they needed their limited equipment to prevent drone attacks within their own borders.

But Russia still used GPS to hold the world hostage:

• Jamming near the Finland and Norway border disrupted flights, seemingly to intimidate their leaders. 
• Threatening to blow up GPS satellites with anti-satellite missiles.

Russia realized a long time ago how critical GPS is to the world.

If there was ever a widespread outage, all travel, financial transactions, communications, and even power grids would grind to a halt.

It is a single point of failure, though the US and other governments are (slowly) working to remedy that.

What have we learned?

• We need a GPS backup
  • We need a commercial alternative that addresses commercial needs.
  • A commercial alternative takes the bullseye off GPS and allows the military to build their own dedicated system.
  • Starlink and others have proven that commercial space companies can provide invaluable services that even impress US military leaders.
• Space will be contested ground in future conflicts. 
  • Russia and China have demonstrated anti-missile capabilities. 
  • Even more scary, they have demonstrated kamikaze, kidnapper, and rendezvous satellites that can destroy our satellites, as well as lasers that can dazzle or disable a satellite. An anti-satellite missile is an obvious provocation. But these capabilities give plausible deniability if one of our satellites “mysteriously fails”.
  • US military satellites are sitting ducks – they are expensive and take too long to replace.
• But you don’t need to knock out satellites to disrupt GPS. Jammers are cheap and, as we recently learned, could be easily deployed on a high-altitude balloon.
• Xairos has learned from these lessons for a future resilient system:
  • A satellite-ground hybrid architecture that uses quantum optical links that are resilient to jamming or spoofing.
  • Multiple payloads on multiple satellites, including hosted on other commercial satellites. 
  • On-orbit and ground spares in case of failures.
  • We are also looking at options to host on future commercial manned space stations, to provide an extra layer of protection and repair capabilities. 

In yesterday’s post we debuted our “Quantum Communications Overview” video – it is time for the sequel!

We get a lot of requests for information about quantum technologies and, in particular, our quantum timing technology.

So we prepared a post in honor of Quantum World Day for those who want to learn more.

Of course, you can do your own Googling – but there is a lot of junk science and misinformation when it comes to quantum.

We carefully curate and try to distill for the non-quantum scientists out there.

One trend we have noticed: the incredible applications enabled by quantum technologies has created a global quantum arms race over the last few years.

It may surprise you to know that China is the leader (according recent McKinsey and Deloitte reports) and responsible for half of the global quantum funding.

In the US, funding from the National Quantum Initiative Act and a renewed government focus has led to new quantum testbeds in Washington DC, Chicago, Tennessee, and New York – and opportunities for startups like Xairos.

This race is so critical that The World Economic Forum raised concerns about a growing quantum divide, since "quantum technology will exponentially accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

The quantum realm awaits – well, not the Marvel version!

You don’t have to be a superhero to have a quantum startup in your portfolio.

But it is hard to separate the hype from reality so we created this “Quantum Communications Overview” video.

Some distinctions as you evaluate Xairos, and other quantum startups:

• Quantum isn’t just a marketing term. To be pedantic, a lot of products rely on quantum actions (lasers, semiconductors). But “true” quantum companies actually manipulate the quantum properties of small objects for amazing applications that will fundamentally change our world.
• Xairos is NOT building quantum computers or atomic clocks. Our video explains the difference.
• Xairos leverages entangled photons, which sounds futuristic, but it is essentially a laser shining through non-linear crystals.
• We work with quantum hardware manufacturers like SpeQtral, Qubitekk, IDQ, AdvR, and ColdQuanta, so we can focus on the system design and algorithm.
• Because quantum communications is more mature, these systems are commercially available and generating revenue, leading to notable exits by IDQ, QuantumCTek, and Arqit.

Please comment if you are interested in learning more about:

• If you want to connect with other quantum startups.
• If you want us to set up a Quantum Webinar for you or your company. We do presentations and corporate “brown bag” briefings across Colorado, including Colorado Space Roundup and Colorado Photonics Industry Association.
• If you want to learn more about Xairos.