Quantum Telepathy: A Quantum Technology with Near-Term Applications

Quantum telepathy is the concept of using quantum entanglement to solve real-world problems that require decision coordination between parties among which some pairs cannot communicate. One possible reason the parties cannot fully communicate is a latency constraint: some pairs of parties do not have enough time to communicate with each other before they have to produce their outputs. Example scenarios include high frequency trading and distributed systems. Another reason is isolation: for some pairs of parties, there is an obstacle to communication. Example scenarios include drone navigation in remote areas and ad hoc network routing where different nodes belong to competing firms. In this paper we give a concise overview of the different application areas of quantum telepathy. We find that these real-world problems can be modeled as nonlocal games or generalizations of nonlocal games where a subset of parties can communicate. We also discuss possible physical implementations. Quantum telepathy guarantees a quantum advantage via Bell's theorem, and this quantum advantage can be physically realized with existing NISQ hardware.