National Research Council of Canada announces funding for Canada–UK quantum collaborations

February 14, 2024 – Ottawa, Ontario – National Research Council of Canada

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is pleased to announce that 11 Canadian firms are receiving funding to collaborate on projects with U.K. partners. The firms were selected following a joint Canada–UK R&D call for proposals by the NRC and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The successful projects focus on developing real-world quantum technologies for commercial use in networking, sensing and scalable solutions to quantum computing as well as developing the supply chain.

The National Research Council of Canada is providing advisory services and research and development funding up to $5.1 million through the Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) and the Collaborative Science, Technology and Innovation Program (CSTIP) to support the 11 collaborative projects.

CSTIP funding was provided under the NRC's Quantum Sensors Challenge program, which seeks to develop revolutionary sensors that could be engineered and commercialized for applications in the environment, natural resources, health care, and defence.

• Up to $500,000 to Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. (Toronto, Ont.) for a project with Rolls-Royce (U.K.) and Riverlane (U.K.) to combine improvements in quantum software and algorithms to improve the runtime and results when running simulations of industrial problems
• Up to $500,000 to SBQuantum (13717658 Canada Inc., Sherbrooke, Que.) for a project with Silicon Microgravity (U.K.) to combine geophysical surveying technologies within a mobile sensor platform for exploration of critical minerals
• Up to $500,000 to Dream Photonics Inc. (Vancouver, B.C.) for a project with Qontrol Ltd. (U.K.) and Duality Quantum Photonics Ltd. (U.K.) to develop high-voltage, low-loss integrated photonics switches for cryogenic optical quantum technologies
• Up to $500,000 to Quantum Bridge Technologies Inc. (Toronto, Ont.) for a project with Toshiba Europe Ltd. (U.K.) to develop quantum key distribution systems for secure delivery of encrypted data over a global network
• Up to $500,000 to Photonic Inc. (Burnaby, B.C.) for a project with ICEoxford Ltd. (U.K.) to develop a cryogenic high-reliability platform for quantum computing  
• Up to $500,000 to Nüvü Camēras Ltd. (Montreal, Que.) for a project with Infleqtion (U.K.) focused on neutral atom quantum computing and the imaging technology used to measure the qubit states
• Up to $691,136 in combined NRC IRAP-CSTIP funding to few-cycle Inc. (Varennes, Que.) for a project with Covesion (U.K.) and the NRC's Security and Disruptive Technologies Research Centre to develop a tool for the generation and manipulation of ultrashort squeezed light pulses
• Up to $419,200 to SoftwareQ Inc. (Waterloo, Ont.) for a project with NuQuantum (U.K.) to develop benchmarking networking interconnect for distributed quantum computers
• Up to $366,500 to Applied Quantum Materials Inc. (Edmonton, Alta.) and $338,250 to University of Calgary (Calgary, Alta.) for a project with Beyond Blood Diagnostics (U.K.) and the NRC’s Nanotechnology Research Centre to develop a circulating tumor cell isolation and detection point of care device
• Up to $205,030 to Ki3 Photonics Technologies Inc. (Montréal, Que.) for a project with Quantopticon (U.K.) Bay Photonics (U.K.) and Galaxy Innovation (U.K.) to develop efficient sources of entangled photons, adapted to the current optical fiber infrastructure
• Up to $144,000 to AY Sensors Inc. (Victoria, B.C.) for a project with Quantum Advanced Solutions Ltd. (U.K.) to develop a small-scale prototype of a low-cost, low-energy intensive, low-detection limit quantum X-ray image sensor