Opinion: Canada is set to take a quantum-computing leap. What will that mean for Canadians?

Sheema Khan is an author who holds a PhD from Harvard University in chemical physics, along with numerous patents on drug delivery technology.

I fell in love with Schrödinger’s equation at Marianopolis College in Quebec. That love took me to courses in quantum mechanics at McGill and later at Harvard, where I would spend many delightful hours studying Feynman diagrams in the physics library. The mathematical elegance and physical implications of those equations were mesmerizing. Just a few years prior, Richard Feynman had first introduced the idea of quantum computing, arguing that traditional computers could not properly simulate quantum mechanical systems.

Today, the next computing disruption is on the horizon, based on the peculiarities of quantum physics. Today’s computers operate based on bits, the smallest units of data, which have a value of either 0 or 1. Quantum computers, on the other hand, operate on “qubits” (quantum bits); a qubit can be 0, 1 or any combination in between. If a bit is like a flat coin that is either heads or tails, a qubit is like a spinning coin, neither heads nor tails, until it lands.

Prosperity's path: Seize the quantum future – or let the U.S. own it. Which way, Canada?