This article summarises the current status of classical communication networks and identifies some critical open research challenges that can only be solved by leveraging quantum technologies. By now, the main goal of quantum communication networks has been security. However, quantum networks can do more than just exchange secure keys or serve the needs of quantum computers. In fact, the scientific community is still investigating on the possible use cases/benefits that quantum communication networks can bring. Thus, this article aims at pointing out and clearly describing how quantum communication networks can enhance in-network distributed computing and reduce the overall end-to-end latency, beyond the intrinsic limits of classical technologies. Furthermore, we also explain how entanglement can reduce the communication complexity (overhead) that future classical virtualised networks will experience.

中文翻译：

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量子通信网络的计算和延迟优势

本文总结了经典通信网络的现状，并确定了一些关键的开放研究挑战，这些挑战只能通过利用量子技术来解决。到目前为止，量子通信网络的主要目标是安全。然而，量子网络可以做的不仅仅是交换安全密钥或满足量子计算机的需求。事实上，科学界仍在研究量子通信网络可以带来的可能用例/好处。因此，本文旨在指出并清楚地描述量子通信网络如何超越经典技术的内在限制，增强网络内分布式计算并减少整体端到端延迟。此外，