Key Laboratory of Quantum Information was founded in 2001 by Professor Guang-Can Guo, director of the lab and Acadimician of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The laboratory is home to forty-six staff, including one Acadimician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, one winner of the Thousand-Talent award of the Ministry of Science and Technology, two winners of the Outstanding Young Scientists award of the National Natural Science Foundation, three winners of the Hundred-Talent award of Chinese Academy of Sciences, five winners of the New Century Outstanding Researcher award of the Ministry of Education, nineteen professors, and twenty-two associate professors and senior engineers. In addition, there are nine postdoctoral researchers and eighty graduate students.　 

Members of the laboratory perform basic and applied basic research on quantum communication and quantum computing. Presently, the laboratory boasts first-class research platforms for quantum cryptography, solid-state quantum chips, quantum simulation, quantum networking, and micro and nano fabrication. Since its foundation, the laboratory has made important contributions to the field of quantum information. Members have published nine books and more than four hundred SCI-indexed research articles, including one in Nature, two in Nature Physics, one in Nano Letters, twenty-seven in Physical Review Letters, one hundred and eighty in Physical Review, nine in Optics Letters, and ten in Applied Physics Letters. These articles have been cited over four thousand times.

Research in the laboratory has produced many noteworthy results, including invention of an error-avoiding encoding technique known as decoherence-free subspace; discovery of probabilistic quantum cloning principles; proposal of a new quantum processing scheme based on cavity QED etc. This result based on cavity QED is a milestone in the field and has been cited over four hundred times. According to Statistics of Chinese research articles in 2008 published by China Institute of Science and Technology Information, it is the tenth most cited Chinese research article in the past ten years. It is the only article in the field of quantum information that is among the top ten most cited Chinese research articles in this period. Researchers in the laboratory have demonstrated teleportation of controlled-not gate which opens the door towards distributed quantum computing. They have proved the non-additivity of capacities of quantum channels. They experimentally observed the sudden death and revival of quantum entanglement for the first time. They experimentally discovered a class of states in a space known as the quantum correlation decoherence-free subspace whose quantum correlation is preserved for a long time. They proposed a quantum computing scheme based on graphene quantum dots, and realized scalable graphene quantum dots and single electron transistors as measurement devices for them. In 2004, researchers in the laboratory demonstrated long-distance (one-hundred-and-twenty-five kilometers) quantum communication between Beijing and Tianjin using a commercial fiber optical network. It was the longest-distance quantum communication demonstration based on commercial fiber optical network reported at that time. They invented a quantum router which was used to realize a four-user fifty-kilometer quantum cryptography network in 2007. It was the world's first and only publicly reported four-port quantum cryptography network that does not employ a repeater. In 2009, they established the world's first government quantum cryptography network in Wuhu city.　 

Members of the laboratory have been awarded four 973-project funds and three directional funds as chief scientists by the Ministry of Science and Technology. They have received one Excellent Innovation Team fund and two key research project funds from the National Natural Science Foundation, plus four directional funds from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.　 

Seventy five students in the laboratory have graduated with a PhD. Among them, one has won the Outstanding Young Scientist award of the National Natural Science Foundation, one has won the Yangtze Professor award of the Ministry of Education, four have won the National top one hundred PhD Thesis award, one has won the National top one hundred PhD Thesis Nominee award, two have won the special director award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, three have won the director award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and five have won the New Century Outstanding Researcher award of the Ministry of Education. They are playing a central-stage role in the development of quantum information technology in China.　 

As a team, researchers of the laboratory have won the second-class natural science award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001, the second-class national natural science award in 2003, the He-Li He-Liang award, the first-class Anhui Province natural science award in 2006, and the Anhui Province outstanding contribution award in 2007. In the 10th anniversary of the national key basic research plan, the quantum communication and quantum information technology team won the Excellent 973 project team award. The laboratory has become the most important research center of quantum information in China. Outstanding research by its members has attracted significant attention in the field of quantum information, both domestically and internationally.