The future is quantum. Canada must seize and industrialize it.

The world is shifting beneath our feet. A new economic race is under way – beyond just jobs or growth. It’s a race for the advanced technologies that will shape Canada’s prosperity, resilience and security for decades to come.

Quantum technologies harness the strange behaviour of nature at its smallest scales, unlocking a powerful new platform poised to transform industries and national security. Quantum computers, for example, use entirely different rules than today’s machines, allowing them to solve certain problems – such as simulating molecules and optimizing complex systems – that are beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional computers. Quantum has now become a defining front in that new economic race.

Canada’s quantum sector is already making global waves. Across the country, researchers and companies are solving problems once thought to be decades away. A striking example: three Canadian firms – Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., Nord Quantique and Photonic Inc. – have each recently made world-first breakthroughs in quantum error correction, one of the hardest challenges to scaling quantum computing systems. Their work is drawing international attention: All three were selected by DARPA – the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Products Agency (DARPA), which was behind the internet and the Global Positioning System – for its elite Quantum Benchmarking Initiative.

These breakthroughs represent just one part of Canada’s broader quantum strengths. We’re not just experimenting – we’re building the frontier systems the world is racing to deploy.

Quantum technologies are no longer a lab curiosity. They’re real, they’re moving fast and they’re becoming infrastructure – reshaping how we communicate, compute, sense and secure critical systems. Canada has what it takes to lead – but only if we act with urgency and intent.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has set a clear ambition: to build the strongest economy in the Group of Seven countries. That won’t happen with incrementalism. In June, he declared quantum a core focus of Canada’s G7 agenda. Also last month, he announced accelerated defence investments, including Ottawa’s new Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science for frontier technologies such as quantum, cyber and artificial intelligence. Inspired by the successes of DARPA, BOREALIS sends a clear message: Quantum is integral to Canada’s economic and strategic future.

Canada was ahead of the curve. We were one of the first countries to recognize the quantum opportunity, making early strategic investments that positioned us as a global leader. Canada made the right foundational bets: funding research, growing a base of talent and building an emerging quantum industry that delivers a global impact that exceeds our scale. Today, we’re known for it: Per capita, we have more quantum small- and medium-sized enterprises than any other country.

But our early lead is under pressure. Canada’s National Quantum Strategy, launched in 2021, is no longer globally competitive. Other countries are scaling fast, backed by strategic investment and national urgency. If we don’t move now, we’ll be locked out of systems, supply chains and decision-making tables being built without us – shutting us out of the very systems we helped make possible.

We’ve seen this pattern before. Canada led groundbreaking AI research, built aerospace clusters from scratch and developed world-class telecom networks. But too often we’ve stopped short of translating scientific leadership into lasting economic and strategic advantage. We have been strong in discovery, but slow on scale.

If we want to lead in quantum – and secure the greatest strategic advantage for Canada – we can’t just innovate. We have to industrialize.

Commercialization brings technologies to market. Industrialization builds capacity: fabrication, integration, secure supply chains and deployment at scale. It’s how we ensure that high-paying jobs, national prosperity and strategic control stay in Canada. Without it, we may be forced to rely on others for the very systems that underpin our economy and security.

Quantum is not niche; it’s a nation-building project. And it requires more than research grants and trickles of startup capital. We need co-ordinated public-private investment, agile procurement and bold, milestone-based support that accelerates scale and sends a clear signal to global markets. Public investment won’t replace private capital – it will crowd it in.

We also need those investments to protect what we’ve built. Some of our most strategic companies are being eyed by foreign investors. Others are looking south for faster scale.

The opportunity is enormous. McKinsey & Co. estimates that quantum technologies could unlock upward of US$2-trillion by 2035. Canada’s National Research Council projects it could contribute more than 3 per cent of our gross domestic product by 2045, rivalling aerospace in scale and strategic importance.

Quantum is not next; it’s now. And every delay increases the chance we’ll be left behind – for good.

As Prime Minister Carney has said, Canada must build bold, build big and build now. Industrializing quantum is exactly that kind of project. It will deliver economic resilience, national security and long-term strategic relevance for Canada.

We can help shape the future or depend on systems with Canadian roots that were ultimately built and owned by others.

The choice is ours. Let’s make the right one.

The future is quantum. Canada must seize and industrialize it.