Quebec enters the era of quantum computing

In a grey industrial building in Dorval, a suburb on the island of Montreal, sitting among a sea of other grey industrial buildings, a team of physicists and engineers is tinkering with a machine that is expected to change the field of computing.

The machine, a white cylinder hanging inside a suspended metal frame surrounded by piping and the rhythmic chirping of a cooling system, fills nearly an entire room. Inside the drum, chemically frozen to temperatures colder than the vacuum of space, hangs a chandelier-like structure of brass and gold wires.

This is MonarQ, a universal quantum computer, one of just a handful operating across the globe, and one of two in Canada. In Bromont, a ski town less than 100 kilometres east of Montreal, another quantum computer is coming together, this one built by IBM.

The two computers represent a breakthrough in the field of computing. They leverage the properties of small particles, which can exist in multiple places at once, to, one day, when the technology is more refined, process information far faster than even the strongest supercomputers. 

The Quebec government has invested nearly $200 million in this technology over a seven-year period in the hope that the province will become a global destination for quantum computing. The two new quantum computers, MonarQ and IBM Quantum One, represent some of the first steps in that direction. 

"It's a major leap forward for Quebec to have a quantum computer," said Alexis Goulisty, the chief technology officer of PINQ2, a non-profit organization based in Sherbrooke, Que., that will manage the IBM computer when it becomes operational sometime later this year. 

"These are very rare machines."

Quantum computing is a budding area of research that experts predict will one day change the way humans solve problems and use computers. Globally, tech giants like Google and IBM, along with some countries like China, are racing to develop quantum computers and train people to use them. 

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) predicts that in a few decades the sector will be worth nearly $140 billion in Canada. 

But as the field blossoms, there are some concerns about how this technology will, eventually, be used.

People who work in the field in Quebec told CBC that conversations are taking place around how these computers can be used "for good," and Goulisty said PINQ2 has an oversight board, of sorts, to ensure the IBM computer isn't being used to decrypt government access codes or hack the financial system, for example.

It is, however, still early days and the computers aren't there yet. There are few people who understand quantum computers well enough to use them — let alone build them, according to Alireza Najafi-Yazdi, the CEO of Anyon Systems, the Montreal-based company that designed and built MonarQ. 

Najafi-Yazdi proudly touts MonarQ as not just the first universal quantum computer in Canada but one that was built entirely in Canada as well. 

Before IBM Quantum One and MonarQ, both of which are set to begin operating in the coming months, there was only one quantum computer in Quebec, a machine used by researchers at the Valcartier military base, which was also built by Anyon, and only a few other early-stage quantum computers elsewhere in the country, too.