A collaborative team of researchers from Qrate, a Russian technology company, and Moscow-based MISiS University has unveiled plans to develop by the end of next year a compact and competitively priced quantum communications system which could reportedly be used in any PC for protected data transfer.

According to a MISiS spokesman, at the core of the effort is a quantum key distribution mini-system to be available to everybody across the B2B and B2C segments. The system is basically an expansion card for ordinary PCs, enabling users to connect to a quantum network and exchange data with up to a hundred network clients.

The cost of using the prospective network is estimated to be around $10,000, which appears to be just a fraction of what users have to pay for currently available quantum communications equipment.