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Classical and quantum technologies have traditionally been viewed as orthogonal, with classical systems being deterministic and quantum systems inherently probabilistic. This distinction hinders the development of a scalable quantum internet even as the global internet continues expanding. We report a classical-decisive quantum internet architecture in which the integration of quantum information into advanced photonic technologies enables efficient entanglement distribution over a commercially deployed fiber network. On-chip precise synchronization between classical headers and quantum payloads enables dynamic routing and networking of high-fidelity entanglement guided by classical light. The quantum states are preserved through real-time error mitigation, relying solely on classical signal readout without disturbing quantum information. These classical-decisive features demonstrate a practical path to a scalable quantum internet using existing network infrastructure and operating systems. 

Quantum key distribution offers a promising avenue for establishing secure communication networks. However, its performance is significantly hampered by the conventional two-level information carriers (i.e., qubits) due to their limited information capacity and noise resilience. A fundamental approach to overcoming these limitations involves the adoption of high-dimensional qudits. Practical qudit platforms require robust propagation, outstanding controllability, and extreme compactness, to which integrated photonics provides a promising solution. Here, we achieved, for the first time, microlaser-enabled high-dimensional quantum communication through leveraging spin-orbit photon qudits, where the dynamical generation and manipulation of these multi-degrees-of-freedom complex quantum state are realized by a non-Hermitian-physics-driven integrated microlaser quantum transmitter. Such a microlaser photon manipulation, as a novel route towards high-dimensional quantum state generation, promises high energy efficiency, along with fast, compact, and precise qudit state reconfigurability. The four spin-orbit eigenstates emitted by the microlaser possess the same spatial-temporal structures, ensuring homogeneity between all qudit states used for key distribution, which effectively eliminates propagation dephasing and walk-off problems, thereby delivering the high-dimensional spin-orbit secret key generation to construct a robust quantum link. The demonstrated long-term system stability showcases the practical potential of the microlaser quantum transmitter, providing a critical step towards compact, high-information-capacity quantum communication networks. Published by the American Physical Society2025