Title: Networking Infrastructure for Science: From Data Transfers to Quantum Communications

Abstract: Networks are a foundational component of modern scientific infrastructure. Scientific workflows increasingly rely on high-performance, reliable communication to connect geographically distributed computing, data, and experimental resources, enabling large-scale, data-intensive science. In this talk, I will reflect on our work in advancing networking infrastructure for distributed science in classical environments, including lessons learned from developing high-performance data transfer technologies that made networks a first-class component of scientific workflows. I will also briefly discuss the evolution from bulk data movement to data-in-motion, highlighting systems such as SciStream and Globus Streaming that support real-time, streaming-driven scientific workflows. I will then turn to quantum communications, which introduce fundamentally different infrastructure challenges driven by physical constraints such as decoherence, probabilistic operations, and the no-cloning principle, as well as the need for tight integration between quantum hardware and classical control and communication systems. I will highlight recent work on quantum networking testbeds, simulation frameworks, and protocols, and discuss open questions for building scalable quantum communication infrastructure.

Short bio: Rajkumar Kettimuthu is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader at Argonne National Laboratory, a Senior Scientist at The University of Chicago, and a Senior Fellow at Northwestern University. His research spans high-performance computing, AI for science, advanced networking, and quantum communications. He has co-authored nearly 200 peer-reviewed publications and played a key role in the development of GridFTP and Globus, widely used technologies for large-scale scientific data movement. He currently leads and contributes to research and development efforts focused on the design, evaluation, and scaling of quantum networking systems. He is a recipient of an R&D 100 Award and a Distinguished Member of ACM.