The funding for the network would come from part of the nearly $1.3 billion budget devoted to the National Quantum Initiative.

There’s already some progress toward these goals. The Wall Street Journal noted that Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago built a 52-mile quantum network through unused fiber, and it should expand to 80 miles once the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory connects to the system.

The US has numerous incentives to build a countrywide quantum network, most notably security. By its very nature, a quantum network is extremely secure — you disrupt the data just by observing it, making it virtually impossible to intercept. It can also transmit large amounts of data, and might help with extremely sensitive quantum sensor networks that could better detect earthquakes or even medical conditions.

It’s still very early days for the prototype network. And much like ARPANET, the precursor to the modern internet, this would be a government research project rather than something you could use for everyday communication. However, it does hint at a future where quantum computing is a crucial part of daily life.

To capture a picture of the Bell entanglement, physicists created a system that shoots off streams of entangled photons from a quantum source of light at what they call “non-conventional objects.” These objects are displayed on liquid-crystal materials, which can change the phase of the photons as they move through them. A camera capable of detecting photons was then set to snap a photo when it identified one photon entangled with another.

According to the researchers, quantum entanglement is one of the primary pillars of quantum mechanics. The concept is used in practical applications like quantum computing and cryptography, but no one has ever managed to capture an image of it in action. Physicists involved in the project believe that the image can help to advance the field of quantum computing and may lead to new types of imaging.