We are at the cusp of the next information technology revolution – that enabled by exploiting quantum mechanics for acquiring, processing, and transmitting information in a fundamentally more powerful way. The 21st century will see the advent of the quantum internet – a worldwide network that connects quantum computers. Quantum information processing will enable a suite of new applications ranging from unbreakable security, far higher resolution sensors (applications in medical-imaging, astronomy, remote sensing, gravimetry), and quantum computing, which will solve problems intractable with today’s super-computers that will have implications in search, optimization and security. The quantum internet will communicate using photons—the quantum physical carriers of information that can travel long distances—and connect quantum processors that may be made out of other quantum physical technologies, such as atomic, superconducting or trapped ion processors. University of Arizona is world renowned for its College of Optical Sciences—for its highly interdisciplinary program spanning all areas of optics and photonics. We are building a quantum information processing research hub focused on photonic quantum information processing technologies, a big focus of which is to design the foundations of the quantum internet. The quantum internet will spur new tech industries and a competitive marketplace of network service providers and application developers.