Abstract:
As we celebrate the United Nations International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (UNESCO 2025), quantum technologies are moving rapidly from theory to industrial and commercial reality. These technologies will fundamentally transform computing, communications, and sensing capabilities in ways that will disrupt entire industries and create new ones and they are no longer a distant frontier—they are already reshaping economic prosperity, global security, and technological leadership. An integral part Canada’s economic and strategic future, the G7 Summit put quantum technologies at the centre of the global policy agenda. This multistakeholder conversation will unpack key policies priorities for Canada and G7

Summary of Conversations

Quantum technologies are rapidly moving from fundamental science to an industrial and commercial reality, fundamentally reshaping economic prosperity and global security. The core, immediate challenge is the imminent threat posed by future quantum computers to current global cryptographic systems, a risk for which preparation is already behind schedule. Experts stressed that this transition is a massive, complex change management process, not a simple software patch. It requires a strategic and proactive shift in organizational posture, moving beyond speculation to action. The potential consequences of delay go beyond data leaks to include catastrophic impacts on critical infrastructure like power grids. Success hinges on three reinforcing pillars: building trust through public awareness, strategic preparation now, and partnership across industry, government, and academia to ensure a secure and prosperous adoption of this platform technology.

Take Away Messages/Current Status of Challenges

• Imminent and Unacceptable Risk: The probability of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) emerging within five years is estimated to be unacceptably high, with a potential 40% chance of being unready within 10 years, necessitating a shift from anticipation to immediate action.
• Crypto Procrastination: Many organizations are paralyzed by the perceived 10-15 year timeline, leading to “crypto procrastination” where immediate operational issues are prioritized over the long, complex preparation required for cryptographic migration.
• Physical Threat to Critical Infrastructure: The quantum threat is a matter of national security, posing a risk not just to data secrecy (PII), but also to the availability and control of essential services like smart grids, transportation, and connected devices, which could lead to widespread system collapse.
• Vulnerability of Sectors: While the federal government has set aggressive internal timelines (plans by 2026, migration by 2030-2031 for critical systems),  regulatory requirements and timelines for vital sectors like finance, health, and non-federally regulated critical infrastructure have not yet been set.
• Complex Change Management: Cryptographic migration is an extensive and complicated ordeal involving a full calendar of change management, testing, and multiple gates of approval due to deep upstream and downstream system dependencies.
• Risk of Rushed Migrations: The inevitable eventual arrival of regulatory mandates will cause organizations to scramble and compete for scarce talent, leading to rushed, flawed, and insecure migrations that increase exploitable security mistakes.
• National Adoption Lag: Despite being a global leader in quantum science, the Canada risks repeating past mistakes, such as with AI, by lagging in the commercial adoption and industrialization of quantum technologies, jeopardizing long-term sovereignty.
• The Problem of the Past: Hackers are already engaging in “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks, accumulating encrypted data today that will be vulnerable to decryption once a CRQC is available, escalating the threat to all long-term secrets.

Recommendations/Next Steps

• Mandate Aggressive Regulatory Timelines: Regulators for critical sectors, including financial institutions, energy, and transportation, must urgently establish and enforce explicit, aggressive deadlines for quantum-safe migration to ensure national resilience and mitigate systemic risk.
• Proactively Initiate Organizational Planning: Organizations must start now by forming cross-functional “tiger teams” and developing formal plans to identify all cryptographic assets and vulnerabilities, treating this as an enterprise-wide change management issue, not solely a technology problem.
• Prioritize Sovereign “Buy Canada” Capability: The government should leverage procurement (e.g., a “Buy Canada” strategy) to support and partner with domestic quantum technology companies to secure sovereign capability
• Back Domestic Winners with Capital and Customers: The ecosystem must focus on providing investment capital to scale domestic “winners” and, crucially, become better anchor customers for these companies, helping them cross the “valley of death” from research to a marketplace product.
• Expedite Technology Procurement: Government and defense procurement timelines, which can average over a decade, must be drastically accelerated to move at the “pace of relevance” for frontier and dual-use technologies like quantum.
• Cultivate Trusted Global Partnerships: Continue to work with trusted countries (e.g., G7, NATO, Pacific region) on common visions for quantum technology, industrialisation, supply chain security, and policy, while ensuring  national security to prevent foreign entities from gaining extractive control.
• Increase Quantum Literacy and Awareness: Invest in building public, governmental, and corporate understanding of quantum technology’s platform nature (beyond just computing) to foster trust and enable earlier, informed adoption strategies.
• Develop a Global Adoption Blueprint: Canada should strive to execute a quantum threat mitigation and adoption strategy so successfully and ahead of time that it becomes a showcase and a blueprint for allied countries and the rest of the world.