Industry Committee on March 25th, 2022

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

Oh, sure.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I understand where you're coming from.

We can't talk about commercialization of quantum computing without talking about semiconductors. In his state of the union address President Biden mentioned that Ohio, with the help of Intel, is going to have a mega-site for semiconductor production. We all know that it's a national security issue, a national economy issue.

Has your department or anyone from the government reached out to Intel to say, “Hey, look north. We have great use for these future semiconductors,” and perhaps boost our semiconductor manufacturing capacity that way?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

With respect to that question, I think my colleague, Dr. Tanguay, might actually be better positioned to respond because the NRC has a fairly important role with respect to semiconductor fabrication.

If I may, Mr. Chair, if it's okay to turn to Dr. Tanguay, I think you may get a better answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Yes, of course.

Madame Tanguay.

[Dr. Geneviève Tanguay]

Thank you.

Yes, we do have a facility within the NRC that does provide semiconductors to industry. We also have a facility that's working on quantum artifacts. For example, we're working with quantum dot lasers, quantum sensors, quantum repeaters and gates just to name a few of the applications that we have.

I know you also just mentioned critical minerals. Critical minerals are also very important for the type of semiconductors that we make, which are compound semiconductors. We use helium, graphite, tungsten, indium, gallium, germanium, chromium, aluminum and nickel. A panoply of critical minerals are being used for the semiconductors and this is very important.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I'm talking about semiconductor manufacturing capacity in Canada. Right now if you look around, there isn't anything sizable to support the future economy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Make it a brief answer, Madam Tanguay, if you wish.

[Dr. Geneviève Tanguay]

We hope to attract foreign investment specifically to support our efforts in relation to compound semiconductors, such as those I have described.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

I will turn the floor over to Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question relates to an article I have read from the AVEQ, the Association des véhicules électriques du Québec. According to a Korean study the article talks about, quantum could allow electric vehicles to be charged at home in three minutes rather than ten hours, while quick charging could be reduced to nine seconds rather than 30 minutes.

I would like to put my question to Mr. Vats from the Department of Industry in particular.

Does going green, by shifting to batteries and the electrical network, have a significant place in the national quantum strategy? Is it a priority at the Department of Industry?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I would say with respect to the quantum strategy specifically, quantum materials are an important part of the quantum ecosystem. We have centres of expertise across the country that are focused on quantum materials, and quantum materials can be applied to a range of different things whether it's quantum computing or advanced solar cell technologies or batteries. Through these investments, that is one of the channels that could be pursued by companies or researchers.

For the department as a whole, I can't speak for all aspects of the department, but it's pretty clear that battery technologies and green vehicles are a pretty high priority, as we have seen even on the industrial scale through a recent announcement of a large facility in Ontario. Both from a research perspective and from an industrial perspective I would say that battery technologies and next-generation battery technologies are going to continue to be a priority for the department.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Other announcements were made before the federal government's national quantum strategy was announced. I am still wondering how the National Defence quantum science and technology strategy fits into the national quantum strategy.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

There are clearly some specific defence-focused priorities that the Department of Defence would have with respect to quantum technologies.

I would say that the programs we have launched under the national quantum strategy actually enable collaboration with the Department of Defence so that we can leverage what they are doing and more strongly connect what they are doing with the academic research community and with industry to make sure that as our defence establishment is looking to develop needed quantum technologies in Canada, they are better linked to the research community and to companies so that you can be pulling those technologies to market.

With respect to the longer term, we have been working very closely with Defence and other departments to make sure that as the national quantum strategy comes together, it is an integrated initiative so that it brings together all of these different pieces where specific departments may have specific interests with respect to quantum to make sure that we are all speaking with one voice and, therefore, can better leverage the capabilities of the government to support Canadian research and industry in this area.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I note that this is an emerging field and that it may expand considerably over the next few years.

At page 6 of the document, where summaries of the comments made by the people consulted are presented, the following conclusion is stated: "The overall amount of [National Quantum Strategy] funding may be insufficient to achieve our goals, especially as other countries have promised to invest more."

What are the possible impacts of the research? How far can we go in this field?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

That's a very difficult question to answer in the sense that it will really be up to the researchers and the companies to determine how far they can go in terms of these new innovations.

I would say that one of the things that we're trying to do through this strategy is to work smarter to better connect what we already have in the country that's funded through a fairly strong base of basic research funding to better enable our centres of quantum expertise to work together, to better connect what our start-up companies are doing to capabilities that are resident in institutions across the country, and to be more deliberate in how we pursue international collaboration.

It's really hard for me to say how far we can go. Over time, it's clear that we'll need more investment in this space, both [Technical difficulty—Editor] private sector and government investment.

One of the advantages we have as a country when we go internationally and talk about quantum research and quantum R and D is that we tend to appreciate collaboration across disciplines more than other countries sometimes do. We're small enough that we can have a very strong collaborative relationship between companies and the basic research sector, and that can take you pretty far in a space like this.

I can't speak to the specific technology outcomes, but I can certainly say that we're trying to incent more of the kind of collaboration that can catalyze some of these innovations here at home.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I look forward to seeing where you go and what recommendations will be made.

I think I won't have time to ask my question about intellectual property, am I right, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You will get another turn shortly, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Masse, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of our guests for being here today.

My first question is on facial recognition. I'll allow both of you to get in on this.

With the way that research is being done right now, is there any commitment to or thought about how that can be applied to not just the private sector, but also the public sector, say, the border and other types of government services that are provided? I'm curious as to whether there is even direction for that or whether that has happened. As we look at research and more grants and development, I wonder whether this is coming back to the public sector in any aspect with the direction.

Facial recognition is one that I'm a bit interested in, having toured some of the sites, even 15 years ago, that were doing the initial work on that. The advances been unbelievable. We vote now in the House of Commons through facial recognition on our hand-held devices.

I'll turn it over, but I'd love to hear from both of our guests here today.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

When it comes to technologies like facial recognition, which is largely based on machine learning and artificial intelligence-based advances that have happened in the last number of years, there are relationships to quantum technology with respect to machine learning. However, more generally, when it comes to AI, there has been a fairly big investment in Canada over the last 10 years with respect to doubling down on the fact that we have very strong.... Some of the pioneers of that kind of research are here in Canada.

Through investments such as the pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy, which was renewed in budget 2021, we're trying to invest in the researchers and in training the people who can implement those kinds of technologies. We're also investing in understanding the societal impacts of these technologies. The flip side of the efficiencies that can be gained through facial recognition is the potential impacts on bias, security and privacy that you need to be very mindful of. Those are things that we're funding on the research side.

With respect to the specific application of those technologies for government, our Treasury Board Secretariat has been trying to develop some guiding principles. These could guide how you do things like use those technologies for autonomous decision-making in a way that respects some of these values that we all share around making sure that people's privacy is protected, and making sure that we try to eliminate bias if we're going to try to use mechanistic kinds of tools to try to identify how to take decisions, and so on.

There is work going on in that space, although it isn't something that my department is.... We are implicated through privacy legislation and other things, but it's largely directed out of our Treasury Board Secretariat.

[Dr. Geneviève Tanguay]

I don't have much to add, apart from the fact that at present, there are numerous groups examining the ethics of quantum technologies, and also the ethics of artificial intelligence, a technology that is widely used in the field of facial recognition.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you very much for that. That's one of the interesting aspects. People are going to see this in more of a direct correlation to their life and that's how they might get more interested, even into the quantum element. It's kind of like explaining to people what a spectrum auction is. It gets very sleepy for some people very quickly, no offence.

I want to ask, though, about how we keep our Canadian researchers and our ground game here, if we're going to lose people internationally. I'm just curious about that aspect. In my region, I've seen tool and die or mould making, for example, where there was an attempt to kind of poach some of our best people, and it has been a challenge to keep the younger people, and so forth.

I wonder if you both have some thoughts on how we can best do that and continue to punch above our weight.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

Thank you for that question as well. It's one that we think a lot about, because our ability to actually seize the benefits of these technologies over time really relies on having that pipeline of talent. Having the researchers here means you can train students. It means that companies are interested in setting their home bases here in Canada, because the natural resource in these emerging technology areas is people. If you have that pipeline of people, that really drives your success.

A lot of these things we're doing through these large investments in research are really also with a mind towards what the downstream benefits will be just by creating that pipeline: the research funding, funding for training for students and post-doctoral fellows, and then connecting those companies in our eco-system to that pool of talent so that they have a place to go that they can plug into as they complete their education. These are all really important pieces that we need to stay on. It's a constant effort.

When you talk to people around the world, they recognize Canadian talent in this space. Anywhere you go, any of the top institutions in the world, they will say, oh yes, they have students who were at Sherbrooke, or at Waterloo or wherever. I think some of that is good, that we're actually learning more by having Canadians go abroad, but we want to bring them back too. That's a critical piece of the puzzle for sure.