The key management faces significant challenges in terms of efficiency, scalability, and quantum resistance in smart grid environments. This paper addresses these challenges by proposing a novel mutual authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocol for the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era. The protocol integrates quantum and classical information streams, enabling secure key agreement without third-party reliance. For the first time, quantum-based mutual identity authentication is applied to smart grid security, with a comprehensive analysis of resilience against various attacks, including man-in-the-middle, quantum computation, relay, impersonation, and DoS. Experimental results show that the scheme achieves a communication cost of 0.9 KB for 2 rounds, outperforming quantum-resistant schemes (2.5 KB) and performing similarly to classical schemes (1.2 KB). The scheme requires 2 quantum preparations and 1 measurement, offering higher efficiency compared to quantum-resistant methods. Compared to QKD and computational hardness-based models, our approach provides superior key management efficiency, practical implementation in non-fault-tolerant quantum systems, and enhanced security protection. Rigorous analysis and validation using IBM’s quantum-enabled environments demonstrate the robustness of the protocol in addressing modern smart grid security challenges.

This paper is concerned with the privacy-preserving bidirectional electric power data transmission problem of the smart grid. A privacy-preserving bidirectional data transmission (BDT) protocol is developed over semi-quantum computation with aim to achieve bidirectional sensitive data flow between power suppliers and users. The minimal quantum cost is pursued under practical constraints while ensuring that power sensitive information is not leaked. To achieve the goal, a two-way data transmission protocol is first proposed that combines mutual identity authentication with message authentication for the benefits of enhanced security. Furthermore, for the preservation of privacy, a semi-quantum duplex communication approach is utilized, wherein the quantum state is randomly divided into two parts: teleportation and measurement qubits. The effectiveness of the privacy-preserving scheme against existing attack strategies is also rigorously analyzed. Lastly, simulation studies conducted on the IBM quantum cloud platform validate and underscore the superiority of the developed privacy-preserving BDT protocol.

Hamiltonian learning, as an important quantum machine learning technique, provides a significant approach for determining an accurate quantum system. This paper establishes parameterized Hamiltonian learning (PHL) and explores its application and implementation on quantum computers. A parameterized quantum circuit for Hamiltonian learning is first created by decomposing unitary operators to excite the system evolution. Then, a PHL algorithm is developed to prepare a specific Hamiltonian system by iteratively updating the gradient of the loss function about circuit parameters. Finally, the experiments are conducted on Origin Pilot, and it demonstrates that the PHL algorithm can deal with the image segmentation problem and provide a segmentation solution accurately. Compared with the classical Grabcut algorithm, the PHL algorithm eliminates the requirement of early manual intervention. It provides a new possibility for solving practical application problems with quantum devices, which also assists in solving increasingly complicated problems and supports a much wider range of application possibilities in the future.

We proposed a novel quantum distributed ballot scheme using swapping quantum entanglement of Bell states. The entanglement is distributed over separated voter's sites; physical inaccessibility of any one site is sufficient to guarantee the anonymity of the votes. The ballot information is encoded by local operations performed on the particles of entangled EPR states, which ensures the security present scheme. The checking phase is designed in detail based on entanglement swapping. The security of these protocols with respect to various kinds of attack is discussed.