Evaluating DV/CV-QKD Architectures for SAFE Long-Term Secure Storage: A Risk Model and ILP-Based Cost Optimization Approach

Abstract

This paper presents a unified cost-modeling and optimization framework designed to evaluate hybrid discrete-variable/continuous-variable quantum key distribution (DV/CV-QKD) infrastructures operating within the SAFE (Secure and Efficient) long-term storage (LTSS) protocol. Our methodology jointly addresses the information-theoretic and computational dimensions of cryptographic durability over multi-decade horizons by coupling a quantitative risk model with a stochastic integer linear programming (ILP) formulation. Going beyond idealized physics-informed limits, the framework incorporates realistic next-generation industrial implementations and multiplexed coexistence specifications, together with a sample-average approximation (SAA) pipeline, to determine cost-optimal and structurally feasible SAFE topologies under transmission-budget and security constraints. The proposed framework is evaluated on both randomized synthetic deployments and realistic metropolitan-scale QKD infrastructures, including the Paris Metro-Scale and Greater Paris networks, to characterize the interplay between network topology, QKD modality, and deployment cost while enforcing a target global compromise tolerance $\epsilon$. Numerical results show that the economically optimal architecture is highly scenario-dependent and that both hybrid and homogeneous modality allocations naturally emerge from the optimization. More importantly, the analysis reveals a non-monotonic relationship between the minimum required QKD link capacity and the infrastructure cost: contrary to intuition, increasing the minimum required per-link secret-key rate may reduce the overall deployment cost by enabling a global transition toward more economical CV-based solutions, whereas further capacity increases do not necessarily yield additional savings.