Canada’s Quantum Capabilities Central to US Competition with China

(EpochTimes) The Ottawa-based Conference of Defence Associations Institute conducted a webinar on quantum supremacy on July 10. “Canada and the democratic alliance must not be complacent and allow leadership in quantum to slip through their fingers,” said Michele Mosca, co-founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. He said a “use it or lose it” mentality is what is needed; Canada has to be proactive—it can’t wait until a potential catastrophe is knocking on the door.
Cybersecurity expert James Lewis praised Canada’s contribution to quantum and said the thrust should be to forge research partnerships between democratic countries for military purposes.
Much of geopolitical competition between the United States and China is taking place in this information domain, and these critical emerging technologies which include quantum computing and quantum information science are fundamentally about our ability to process, access, and harness information for national power,” said Lindsay Gorman, fellow for Emerging Technology at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund of the United States.
China aims to be a technology superpower. It took a big step toward ultra-secure global communications in 2016 with the launching of the first quantum satellite. Then in 2017, the satellite was used for the first quantum-encrypted virtual teleconference between Beijing and Vienna, Austria.
History has shown that technology can drive the military and military needs can spur technological advances. Quantum computing is one example of that next innovation with military applications, like gunpowder and bronze once were.