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arXiv:2511.07760 · Research

Quantum Semantic Communication Beyond the Shannon-Wyner Channel Capacity

Min Wang, Gui-Fa Zhu, Guo-Fei Long, Jianxing Guo, Yu-Chen Liu, Dong Pan, Li-Ping Nong, Gui-Lu Long

quant-phSubmitted Nov 11, 2025• Announced Nov 12, 2025• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum Secure Direct Communication (QSDC), a paradigm-shifting breakthrough in quantum communication, exploits quantum states for unmediated information transmission. Rooted in the inviolable fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, QSDC enables ultrasensitive detection of even the faintest eavesdropping attempts, guaranteeing true communication security solely when no interference exists. If eavesdropping or intrusion is detected mid-transmission, the system instantly alerts users and severs data flow, shielding them from unauthorized tracking and mitigating hacker threats. Over two decades, QSDC has seen extraordinary advancements, currently attaining kilobit-per-second transmission over 100 km of commercial optical fiber. However, its practical scalability remains constrained by insufficient transmission rates, a critical bottleneck. Semantic communication, which drastically boosts transmission efficiency by extracting core information features, nevertheless stays vulnerable to malicious intrusions. Integrating these paradigms promises to simultaneously enhance equivalent data rate and security. Herein, we propose and experimentally validate a quantum semantic communication scheme, applying it to 3D point clouds. It achieves a 46.30-fold efficiency gain over direct transmission, surpassing both Wyner and Shannon capacity limits. This breakthrough not only clears the path for large-scale QSDC deployment but also marks a pivotal milestone in quantum information science.

Journal reference
Research, 2026
DOI
10.34133/research.1397

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Quantum Secure Direct Communication (QSDC), a paradigm-shifting breakthrough in quantum communication, exploits quantum states for unmediated information transmission. Rooted in the inviolable fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, QSDC enables ultrasensitive detection of even the faintest eavesdropping attempts, guaranteeing true communication security solely when no interference exists. If eavesdropping or intrusion is detected mid-transmission, the system instantly alerts users and severs data flow, shielding them from unauthorized tracking and mitigating hacker threats. Over two decades, QSDC has seen extraordinary advancements, currently attaining kilobit-per-second transmission over 100 km of commercial optical fiber. However, its practical scalability remains constrained by insufficient transmission rates, a critical bottleneck. Semantic communication, which drastically boosts transmission efficiency by extracting core information features, nevertheless stays vulnerable to malicious intrusions. Integrating these paradigms promises to simultaneously enhance equivalent data rate and security. Herein, we propose and experimentally validate a quantum semantic communication scheme, applying it to 3D point clouds. It achieves a 46.30-fold efficiency gain over direct transmission, surpassing both Wyner and Shannon capacity limits. This breakthrough not only clears the path for large-scale QSDC deployment but also marks a pivotal milestone in quantum information science.
Quantum communication has reached a rate bottleneck, yet enhancing its throughput remains of profound significance. Here, we propose a scheme termed semantic quantum secure direct communication (QSDC), which is a novel paradigm integrating semantic communication with QSDC to realize highly efficient, task-oriented, and intrinsically secure information transmission. In semantic QSDC, meaningful semantic content is directly encoded into quantum states, whereby the fundamental laws of quantum physics guarantee inherent eavesdropping-detection capability and information-theoretic security. By harnessing semantic compression and artificial intelligence–assisted encoding strategies, this approach surpasses the intrinsic rate constraints of conventional QSDC. Simulation results show that semantic QSDC can surpass the Shannonian mutual information bound compared with conventional QSDC systems and demonstrate its potential to break through the linear rate-transmittance bound of quantum communication. These findings pave the way for high-rate secure communication.
Quantum communication has reached a rate bottleneck, yet enhancing its throughput remains of profound significance. Here we propose a scheme termed quantum semantic communication-a novel paradigm that integrates semantic communication with quantum secure direct communication to realize highly efficient, task-oriented, and intrinsically secure information transmission. In quantum semantic communication, meaningful semantic content is directly encoded into quantum states, whereby the fundamental laws of quantum physics guarantee inherent eavesdropping-detection capability and information-theoretic security. By harnessing semantic compression and artificial intelligence-assisted encoding strategies, this approach surpasses the intrinsic rate constraints of conventional quantum secure direct communication. Simulation results show that quantum semantic communication can surpass the Wyner secure information bound compared with conventional quantum secure direct communication systems and demonstrate its potential to break through the linear distance bound of quantum communication. These findings pave the way for high-rate secure communication.
Quantum communication realizes information-theoretic security using photonic quantum states, for example, quantum secure direct communication (QSDC), which can achieve secure and reliable communication in a channel with both noise and eavesdroppers. However, QSDC suffers from large losses and short communication distances, thus being impractical for applications. Here, we have proposed a one-way quasi-QSDC protocol with single photons. This protocol enables the simultaneous transmission of information and key exchange using the same single photons and is robust against loss and error because it uses error correction and spectrum expansion techniques. In a proof-of-principle demonstration using weak coherent pulses, the system achieved a real-time secure transmission rate of 2.38 kilobits per second over a 104.8-kilometer standard telecommunication fiber, which set world records in both aspects. This system paved the way for the practical application of QSDC and offers a unique method to detect eavesdropping online, which is crucial in certain circumstances.
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The concept of quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is to distribute secure message directly between distant users securely, which is an important branch of quantum information science. The purpose of QSDC is to investigate the large capacity of quantum channels and fast speed of information transmission. However, the fidelity of qubits and the efficiency of QSDC will inevitably be affected by the channel noise and the decoherence of the quantum system. In this work, we focus on the performance of QSDC under different noisy channels, and investigate the evolution of quantum states. By numerically studying the performance for two QSDC protocols, we show the efficiency of information transmission over different noisy channel models.