With respect to AI, photonics doesn't figure quite so prominently with respect to AI research, but there are applications of AI in a whole range of different areas, including developing new materials and new technologies, so I think there is a crosswalk there.
With respect to what the government's doing, it has had for a number of years something called the pan-Canadian AI strategy, which to date has been delivered through CIFAR, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. The main focus of that has been on making sure that we can attract and retain top talent and train more talent in the field of AI. When it comes to AI technologies, it's really about a talent pipeline that you can produce that can lead to new advances in AI but can also help support industry in terms of adopting these new approaches that could really improve the efficiency of their processes, their ability to create new materials or new products or services.
In the last budget the government renewed that talent play, but also added to it some more focused efforts to try to encourage commercialization of innovations in AI, as well as to help Canadian industry adopt these technologies. The technologies really are making the best use of the data that companies have at hand to optimize what they do and provide greater computing power for the research. It's a very specialized kind of technology, the computing that's needed for AI.
On the quantum side, Canada's been investing fairly strongly in quantum technologies over a number of years. Over the past 10 or 11 years, we've spent upwards of a billion dollars in research funding in various forms for quantum. It's really meant that when you go around the world and you talk to researchers about quantum, they know Canada and they know Canadian researchers. We also have a fairly rich nascent start-up community of Canadian companies in a range of areas that relate to quantum technologies.
Building off of that strength that's been built in the last budget, the government committed to a national quantum strategy for Canada, which focuses on research, commercialization and talent. We've done consultations in that area and are in the process of developing the strategy, which would try to help accelerate what we've already built in Canada so we can stay ahead of the curve internationally.
The NRC might have some things to add on that, if there's enough time. I'm sorry I've taken so much time, but there might be some things that Dan or Shannon may wish to add.