Timely Control for Quantum Cloud: Orchestrating Entanglement Under Decay

Abstract

Quantum networks are moving toward shared, multi-tenant cloud infrastructure where entanglement must be allocated, consumed, and even recovered under contention. Unlike classical cloud resources, entangled states are probabilistic to generate, stored in scarce quantum memory, degraded by time, and destroyed by use, so a logically correct control decision can become useless if it arrives after the state has degraded beyond application requirements. This vision paper advocates for an entanglement orchestration plane: a cloud-control-plane architecture that treats entangled states as first-class, time-sensitive, consumable resources. The design combines lightweight dissemination for high-rate telemetry with an agreement-backed lifecycle core for correctness-critical transitions. The goal is to complement quantum-network stacks, link-layer protocols, and routing algorithms by providing the missing fault-tolerant layer needed for safe multi-tenant quantum cloud systems.