Founder and chief quantum officer Stephanie Simmons at the Photonic Inc. lab in Coquitlam, B.C, in November, 2023.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
All three Canadian companies participating in a U.S. government effort to determine if quantum computers can operate at a practical scale within the next decade have advanced to the second stage of the program.
On Thursday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research and development arm of the U.S. military, announced that the Canadian trio – Nord Quantique of Sherbrooke, Que., Photonic Inc. of Coquitlam, B.C. and Toronto-based Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. – are among 11 companies it has chosen to take part in Stage B of its Quantum Benchmark Initiative.
The goal of the initiative is to identify which approach to quantum computing – if any – has a realistic chance of succeeding in the near future. DARPA has designed the multistage program not as a winner-take-all contest but as a way to ferret out viable technologies.
There has been soaring interest recently in quantum computing among investors, after a string of technical breakthroughs in the past year that appear to have removed some key scientific hurdles to building quantum computers that have commercial potential.
During Stage B of the DARPA program, participants are eligible to receive up to US$15-million in funding to put toward a detailed planning phase.
“The objective is to prove that our plan is viable and the machine we’ve designed will be delivered on time and function as intended,” said Nord Quantique’s chief executive officer, Julien Camirand Lemyre.
The selection means that the Quebec company, as well as Photonic and Xanadu, have successfully cleared the initial six-month stage of QBI. During that stage, each company had to provide a technical description of their concept for a quantum computer that can solve useful problems and provide more value than it costs to build.
Through this period, DARPA’s experts tried to spot flaws in the companies’ plans and, if possible, show why they won’t work.
In Stage B, participating companies will undergo a detailed year-long review of their research and development plans, identifying risks that could arise along the way and strategies for mitigating them.
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Those that succeed can move on to Stage C, which involves an independent evaluation of their hardware by DARPA as they progress toward a working prototype. During Stage C, companies will have a chance to unlock a much larger investment of up to US$300-million to verify they can build a working and useful quantum computer.
“Anybody who makes it all the way through the end of Stage C – we’ve either proven your concept doesn’t work, or we’ve proven that the U.S. government should get one of these because it’s going to change the world.” said DARPA program manager Joe Altepeter in a video created for QBI participants.
It’s not clear how many participants have been winnowed out of the program as some entered Stage A later than others, including Google, and are still being evaluated. DARPA said more names of successful entrants to Stage B could be added in the future.
Stephanie Simmons, founder and chief quantum officer at Photonic, said the results of the program could be immensely consequential because they will signal to investors and clients which companies have an edge in the fledgling quantum-computer industry.
It will be “the kingmaker program for all the Fortune 500, who will want to know who is the legitimate place to work with,” she said.
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Ms. Simmons added that during Stage A of the program, the DARPA experts that worked with Photonic were thorough and professional in their critique.
“They weren’t taking cheap shots. They were spending the time,” she said.
Xanadu’s chief executive officer, Christian Weedbrook, said that, so far, DARPA’s scrutiny has shortened his company’s path toward a quantum computer that can operate at a feasible size.
“Initially, our blueprint before starting QBI required a quantum computer the size of one to two football fields,” he said. “After QBI, we now have that down to roughly a tennis court size for the same computational power.”
On Monday, Xanadu announced plans to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, after stocks of several other publicly listed quantum-computing companies rose to record highs.
Quantum computers are considered a potentially transformative technology because they utilize some of the strange physical properties of matter and light at microscopic scales to generate solutions to certain kinds of mathematical problems that conventional digital systems are unable to crack.
If quantum machines can be made to operate reliably and economically, they are expected to have a range of useful applications in cybersecurity, material science, pharmaceuticals and for solving problems related to optimization and forecasting.
Each of the three Canadian companies participating are pursuing a different core technology as the basis of their quantum system. And all three are different from others in the challenge, including five U.S. companies, two based in Australia and one in Britain.
Lisa Lambert, chief executive officer of Quantum Industry Canada, an industry association, says the fact that all three Canadian companies are advancing to the next level of QBI demonstrates the country’s strength in the quantum-technology arena.
“It’s been a powerful mirror, showing that our companies aren’t just early movers; they’re building at the frontier of what’s possible,” she said.
This week’s federal budget allocates $334.3-million over the next five years to strengthen Canada’s quantum ecosystem. Ms. Lambert and others have called the investment a step in the right direction but far short of what is needed to compete with other countries who are rapidly developing their own quantum industries.
Asked if Canadians should be worried that the country’s top quantum companies are revealing their technology to the U.S. military, Mr. Lemyre of Nord Quantique offered a reassuring response.
“We are explaining the concept and the principles behind our technology. That would certainly not be enough to build the system.” he said. “We also see DARPA as a long-term partner who can help us open doors for years to come.”
Editor’s note: In a previous version of this article, The Globe reported that Google and at least six other participants had been winnowed out of DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative program because its name didn't appear on a list of companies that had made it from the program's first stage into the second stage. In fact, Google joined the first stage in September, later than other participants, and is still undergoing its evaluation process.