Quantum-Secured Tactical Networks Under EDF 2026
What the EDF-2026-RA-CYBER-QSTN-STEP topic implies for architecture choices, eligibility constraints, and consortium execution.
As European defence planners begin to treat communications security as a binding condition for operational freedom rather than a background IT problem, the tactical layer becomes the hard case: systems must remain usable under jamming, interception, and degraded timing while still integrating with existing radios, command-and-control stacks, and coalition procedures. The EDF 2026 topic on Quantum Secured Tactical Networks sits inside this tension between urgency and feasibility. It forces a practical question that goes beyond technological ambition: what combination of security approach, integration design, and industrial control can credibly be demonstrated within a research action, and what must be deferred to later development cycles without leaving an architectural dead-end. The value of the call, for industry and investors, is therefore not in abstract “quantum” signalling, but in the extent to which it can produce an integration path that procurement authorities can trust, suppliers can industrialise, and programme governance can sustain under strict eligibility and supply-chain expectations.