Good morning. Christian Weedbrook went from film school dropout to leading one of Canada’s most innovative companies. Will going public help him reach his goal of building a quantum computer? If he seems disconcerted about a rocky entry to markets, that’s only because he’s thinking bigger. Weedbrook’s long-term vision is in focus today, along with a window into wildlife genomics.
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In the news
Oil and gas: Energy prices were whipsawed after intensified attacks on the Persian Gulf targeted oil infrastructure. Meanwhile, allies indicate they are willing to use “appropriate efforts” to reopen Strait of Hormuz
Alberta: Danielle Smith defended her government after the RCMP executed search warrants as part of their criminal investigation into the health care procurement probe
Defence: Ottawa is buying more than 65,000 new assault rifles from Kitchener, Ont.-based Colt Canada through an expedited procurement process
Securities: The OSC’s case against Emerge Canada will test the responsibilities of investment funds’ independent review committees
A tiny squeezer chip undergoes tests for measuring squeezed light (quantum light) at Xanadu’s Toronto office on Sept 9, 2025.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
In focus
Xanadu and the future of Quantum Computing
Good morning. I’m Sean Silcoff, technology reporter with The Globe and Mail. My colleague Ivan Semeniuk, our science reporter, and I have written a profile for this weekend’s Report on Business on one of Canada’s most visionary tech entrepreneurs – a transplanted Australian named Christian Weedbrook whose Toronto-based company, Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., has emerged as one of the leaders in a global race to develop the world’s most powerful computers.
Weedbrook wanted to be a filmmaker, but he failed out of film school – twice. He was 23 and working part-time in a video store and stocking groceries in his native Australia when he decided to give postsecondary education another shot at nearby University of Queensland. He wanted to study math. A dean who met him wasn’t sure what to make of him at that point in his life, and thought he might be a drug addict.
Turns out he was pretty good at math, now he’s determined to be an even better entrepreneur.
From such inauspicious origins, the now 49-year-old Weedbrook has taken a quantum leap. He moved to Canada 16 years ago, and adopted Toronto as his home. Next week, Xanadu is set to debut as a publicly traded company after merging with Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp.
Christian Weedbrook, CEO of Xanadu, by Aurora, a prototype quantum computer at the company’s Toronto office on Sept 8, 2025.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
With its subsequent cross-listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Xanadu will become the first Canada-based technology company since 2021 to go public on Canada’s senior exchange. While we report the deal has had a shaky week – market conditions are tough overall – Weedbrook is thinking longer term.
Xanadu has emerged as one of the leaders of the nascent quantum computing sector by taking what was a novel approach when Weedbrook founded the company 10 years ago: using pulses of laser light to generate the effects needed to run his quantum processors. The approach has several advantages over other systems.
Now, after publishing results of several scientific breakthroughs in the journal Nature and qualifying for the second round of a high-profile global quantum computing challenge competition in the United States, Weedbrook’s plan is to build a data centre powered by quantum computers. By 2030. After securing just over US$300-million during the go-public process, he needs to raise another US$700-million to fund his dream.
The monotone-voiced boss is direct, blunt and matter-of-fact in conversation, with a dry sense of humour. He admits that he can be prickly with investors, and he says that building those relationships “has probably been the most challenging part, even more than building a quantum computer.”
But after a decade of building Xanadu, “the drive and fire hasn’t stopped in me,” he told me.
As Ivan and I have written for you before, Canada has emerged as a leader in the global quantum technology space, but the industry is both teeming with opportunity and clouded by doubts. There has been a lot of hype and promise about computers and other breakthrough technologies that will derive their power not from 1s or 0s, but the mind-bending physical properties of subatomic particles.
Quantum computers, many experts believe, will some day be able to solve complex problems that would take the world’s most powerful supercomputers millions of years to crack, unleashing new capabilities such as more powerful risk modelling, tackling dense optimization problems and discovering new drugs and materials.
That day is starting to feel awfully close, as we explored in another Report on Business cover story last September. And Weedbrook is driven to be among the first to succeed. “You can guarantee we’re working the hardest” among quantum computer developers, he told us. “It’s all about getting to this vision.”
Charted
World Happiness Report
Despite living in one of the safest, most stable democracies in a chaotic world, Canadians – especially young people – are getting more gloomy about life with each passing year, according to the 2026 World Happiness Report. In the country’s worst-ever showing in the 14 years that the report has been published, Canada ranked 25th out of 147 countries in the life-satisfaction standings, even as most of the world’s population gets happier. Happiness Reporter Erin Anderssen has the full story.
Quoted
Economically and ecologically, it’s hard to find a more important large mammal in Canada.
— Aaron Shafer, associate professor at Trent University who specializes in wildlife genomics
White-tailed deer are a crucial species from a conservation and wildlife-management standpoint. Exactly how the deer move and behave in response to a changing environment is tied to their genetics. It’s that part of the story that Dr. Aaron Shafer hopes to access.
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More files we’re following
Work, out: A number of provinces are criticizing Ottawa’s move to expand the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for rural employers.
Watch out: Toronto’s Kensington Capital Partners Ltd. expanded investor access to private equity and trapped clients are waking up to the risks.
Watching: We’re keeping an eye on data coming for Canadian retail sales for January and the new-housing price index for February. Canada’s industrial product and raw materials price indexes will also release data for February.
Morning update
Global markets turned lower as oil prices climbed and risk remained elevated with the expanding Middle East conflict reinforcing inflation fears.
Wall Street futures were in the red after major North American markets closed down yesterday. TSX futures followed sentiment lower.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 inched down 0.05 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 eased 0.57 per cent, Germany’s DAX gave back 0.04 per cent and France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.1 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei was closed for a holiday, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 0.88 per cent.
The Canadian dollar traded at 72.85 U.S. cents.