Clean Power, Smart Sovereignty: Driving Canada's competitive AI and quantum future

Phil has been in the networking and data center industry for over 35 years at market-leading companies including Intel and Cisco. Prior to joining Rockport, he led the strategy, roadmap, and lifecycle for Intel’s differentiated systems-based solutions. He drove the market and industry adoption of Rack Scale Design as the leading platform for Hyperscale applications, as well as service development and deployment. Phil also served as a Vice President and Senior Vice President for Riverbed Technologies, BMC Software, and Cisco Systems. He led groups within those companies in a variety of projects featuring cloud services, automation, and innovative service provider models. Phil holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Willesden College of Technology in the UK.

Joy Johnson is president and vice-chancellor of Simon Fraser University, and professor in its Faculty of Health Sciences. 

As president, Joy is committed to carrying out SFU’s vision to be a leading research university, advancing an inclusive and sustainable future.

Prior to her appointment as president, Joy served as SFU’s vice-president, research and international, and oversaw the evolution of cutting-edge research, innovation, and international engagement across eight faculties. 

Under her leadership, SFU’s achieved the fastest growth of any Canadian university research income of any university in Canada, with a focus on mobilizing knowledge to enhance the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of its communities. 

Prior to SFU, Joy had a distinguished career in academics and research. She is an elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has co-authored more than 180 peer-reviewed articles.

Professor Johnson is a director and current vice-chair on the Universities Canada board.

Craig Tavares is a seasoned leader with over 20 years in digital infrastructure and energy. As President of BUZZ HPC, he drives the company’s Sovereign AI Cloud and high-performance data center strategy, expanding Canada’s GPU capacity for demanding AI workloads.

He has held senior leadership roles at Cogeco, Aptum (DigitalBridge), and Apple, where he built and scaled global cloud, data center, and hybrid infrastructure businesses. Earlier, he co-founded Kingston Co-gen, leading M&A and development of 300MW of power generation while pioneering one of North America’s first HPC-enabled power-plant data centers.

Recognized as an innovator and growth driver across telecom, cloud, energy, and AI, Tavares combines technical depth with strategic vision. At BUZZ HPC, his leadership is instrumental in positioning the company as Canada’s leading sovereign AI cloud provider.

Dr. Kristine Spekkens is a professor in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy at Queen’s University, where she is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Gas-Rich Galaxy Structure. She leads a research group that focusses on understanding the structure and evolution of nearby galaxies, and she is particularly interested in using their atomic gas reservoirs to probe the interplay between the galaxy evolution and that of the universe itself. Dr. Spekkens leads a variety of initiatives to survey atomic gas in galaxies using the biggest radio telescopes in the world, including facilities in Canada, Australia, the US and South Africa. 

In addition to her scientific research, Dr. Spekkens is deeply involved in the international partnership to build the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. Nationally, she is the Canadian SKA Science Director who coordinates between stakeholders in universities, government and industry. Internationally, she is the Chair of the SKA Observatory’s Science and Engineering Advisory Committee, which brings together experts from around the world to provide independent technical advice to the project.

Luc Simard is the Director-General of the National Research Council’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, which represents Canada in the governance of the SKA Observatory (SKAO) and works with domestic and international partners to deliver key observatory systems. He has held leading governance roles in that context, including the Canadian voting member on the SKAO Council. Dr. Simard also has oversight of other major Canadian STI investments in astronomy, such as the Thirty Meter Telescope and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre. 

Dr. Simard obtained his B.Sc. from Queen’s University in 1990 and his Ph.D. from the University of Victoria in 1996. From 1996 to 2002, he held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California – Santa Cruz and the University of Arizona. 

Dr. Simard joined the NRC in 2002 where he was the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope archive scientist at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre from 2002 to 2005. He worked on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) from 2005 to 2017, and was the TMT Science Instruments Group Leader from 2009 to 2017, and was appointed Director General of the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre in November 2018. 

Dr. Simard’s research interests include galaxy formation and evolution, image processing and astronomical instrumentation.