2025 Looking Back...

Happy New Year! 2025 was a dynamic year for the high-tech sector, including AI, space, quantum, and PNT, the areas where Xairos play. Here's our perspective:

AI: The Voracious Appetite of Data Centers

The debate around AI still centers around it's potential to re-shape society as we know it, but concerns about its climate impact were also big news in 2025. Studies noted that:

• "AI searches use "30 times as much energy" as a normal search

• "Creating a 5-second AI video is like running a microwave for an hour"

• "Every search on ChatGPT uses the equivalent of a bottle of water."

• "1 megawatt (MW) data centre can use up to 25.5 million litres of water annually just for cooling – equivalent to the daily water consumption of approximately 300,000 people"

• ChatGPT "is estimated to consume 500 ml of water per 10-50 responses."

• AI's energy use will soon make up "nearly half of all total data-center electricity consumption worldwide."

While these data centers need power and water, they also need time. Better timing synchronization, which Xairos will provide, improves the performance of distributed databases and prevents potentially damaging power surges caused by the processing of large language models.

Space: An Extension of Earth

Space was once "the final frontier," but no longer. Spurred by $350B in investment in over 2000 companies over the last decade (and a record year of investment in 2025), the cost of access to space has dropped by two orders of magnitude, which opened the floodgates to mega-constellations, Direct-to-Device (D2D) and Satellite-to-Device (S2D) that integrate "satellite connectivity with terrestrial networks," space tourism, satellite imagery and data, lunar exploration, and a space race reminiscent of the Cold War.Space has matured to become an industry that is expected grow to a $1.8T market by 2035 and fueled speculation of a potential record $1.5T SpaceX IPO. But, with with the commercial exploitation of space comes the same problems we see on Earth: overcrowding, pollution, and the potential for conflicts (see 'The More You Know' section below for more on how the environment in space threatens GPS).

PNT: The Threats Grow

A future space conflict is a major concern for GPS. Without it, our networks, telecommunications, data centers, ATM and credit card transactions, and eventually power grids, would all degrade and possibly fail. The concern is fueled by the uptick in GPS outages primarily caused by conflicts in Eastern Europe and Middle East. Alarming reports have emerged of malicious jamming and spoofing impacting 1500 commercial flights a day, including the flight of the EU Chief; the Azerbaijan Airlines crash; the collision of two ships in the Strait of Hormuz; and even interference in low Earth orbit satellites. But much more concerning are reports that "a space-based jammer" caused brief, but wide-scale, interference over the whole of Europe, possibly as a test for more malicious future large-scale outage. Xairos is committed to solving these issues.

Quantum: The Second Quantum Revolution and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The World Economic Forum believes that "quantum technology will exponentially accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution," but, until recently, quantum hardware struggled to break out of the lab. Fortuitously, 2025 started out as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology to celebrate a century of quantum development; it ended with record investment and a flurry of breakthroughs, with quantum computers demonstrating more complex optimization problems and simulations, sensitive RF, magnetic and gravity field quantum sensors tested in the field; and new advancements in accurate clocks, imaging, and quantum networking (aka the quantum internet). Quantum communications hardware, in particular, are already being installed in cell phones, networks, and satellites, providing the secure delivery of encryption keys, random numbers, and time. And PNT is emerging as the killer app for quantum technologies - that's our mission at Xairos.

🏆 Achievements

2025 was another big year for Xairos. Our company was born around commercializing our quantum time transfer technology, and 2025 saw major progress towards that goal:

• Signed new contracts with:

  • Innovate UK 2025 Quantum Sensors and PNT Missions Primer "TimeLink" development of commercially-viable hybrid quantum time transfer.

  • Netherlands Ministry of Defence Quantum Challenge "Quantum Time Transfer Free-Space Demonstrator Presentation".

• Added on and extended existing contracts with:

  • European Space Agency (ESA) NAVISP "Quantum Time Transfer" project approved to move to Phase 2.

  • European Space Agency (ESA) subcontract to Raymetrics to deliver a Quantum Receiver for the "Greek Connectivity Optical Ground Stations Programme." 

  • TNO KiQQer project that successfully demonstrated free-space quantum time transfer over 150 meters led to the follow-on project "Demonstrating a two-way authenticated and PUF-protected quantum time transfer protocol over a synchronized coexisting (classical/quantum) channel with Photonic Integrated Circuit-based Entangled Photon-Pair Sources."

  • Aerospace Corporation Technology Readiness Level (TRL) Bootcamp to receive "innovation assessment, technical guidance, and lab access" as part of our US Space Force project to develop a "Fusion PNT of Quantum and Optical Synchronization of Clock Ensembles."

• Top Innovator in the Quantum for Society Challenge award by the World Economic Forum, UpLink, the Quantum Economy Network, and the Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution KSA - one of 10 companies to receive this award in the world.

  
  

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