SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s largest telecommunications company, unveiled a prototype of an ultra-small, low-cost quantum random number generator (QRNG) chip.

QRNG technology can produces highly unpredictable, genuine random numbers, which is a key to the security of the cyber world. Connected internet-using devices require encrypted communication via random number generators to prevent hacking.

There are a few companies in Europe and North America that have developed QRNG devices, but most of QRNG devices currently available are bulky and expensive so that their application has been limited. Compared to them, SK Telecom’s ultra-small QRNG chip can be easily fitted in various electronics products like self-driving cars, drones, and smartphones for secure data transfer, the company said on Sunday. The chip with a dimension of 5x5 millimeters is also the smallest of its kind, claimed the company.

Demand for safe processing and transferring of vast data on secured network has been rapidly rising, turning the world’s attention on quantum mechanics that guarantees higher level of security than the conventional method. The U.S. government marked the quantum information science as “national challenges and opportunities” last year, and China included quantum information science in its mid- to long-term national science and technology development plan.

The Korean government picked quantum information communication technology as the nation’s 10 key IT technologies in 2012 and has been collaborating with both private and public institutions to develop quantum communication and quantum computing technologies.

SK Telecom said it aims to commercialize its QRNG chip by the end of this year.

At 1:56 p.m. on Monday, share of SK Telecom stood at 276,500 won ($248.07), up 6,000 won or 2.2 percent from the previous session.

By Cho Hee-young

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