To achieve quantum supremacy, organizations must build a quantum computer that can solve a specific problem exponentially faster than the most advanced classical supercomputer available today.
“Globally, it’s a player, for sure,” says Mr. Weedbrook, who first studied in his native Australia, before pursuing postdoctoral research fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later, University of Toronto, adding that the city just “felt right.” “It’s still the very early days,” says Ray Laflamme, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Waterloo “It’s just in the last five years, approximately, that people are starting to look at real problems in the real world that quantum computers could solve, and we’re seeing companies from Goldman Sachs to the Cleveland Clinic develop small groups of quantum computing people.”
“That really helped Canada establish itself as an early adopter of a very new field,” says Mr. Laflamme, who was installed by Mr. Lazaridis as director of IQC in 2002. in early 2023. “That group is helping to establish a strategy, really based on three things,” says Mr. Laflamme, who co-chaired the NQS advisory council. “One is to ensure the science continues to be developed, then training people, and third is developing the economic side of the quantum industry.