Thank you for the question.
The first thing I want to share with the committee is that the NRC established challenge programs somewhere around seven or eight years ago to very much do exactly what you said. The NRC's expertise needs to be combined with the best expertise outside the NRC. We define program areas that are missions for the country, and then pursue them over seven years. It's long-term work, with focus and intention, to get to outcomes. Those programs are approved by our minister in order to give them the sense that we're aiming for things the country needs and that are relevant.
I'll give you an example very much related to what you said.
A new program we're launching, which is under way now, is quantum internetworking. It's a new challenge program. It's been supported as a consequence of the defence industrial strategy. It's to do exactly what was mentioned: design the technology layer needed to move a quantum state across long distances and to essentially build quantum networks for the future.
Canada has everything from an ingredients point of view. We need to realize this, but we also need to tie it all together. That's what the program's intention is. That's why it's seven years. That's why it's not just us. It's us with academics and companies, all working together. This has been built into the NRC's tool box over the last decade of change and reform at the NRC, and it puts us in the exact right role. We can now deliver this sort of thing for Canada in a unique way.