Quantum Computing's Next Frontier with Christian Weedbrook

What takes a supercomputer 7 million years, Christian Weedbrook’s Toronto-based quantum computer did in just two minutes.

Christian Weedbrook, CEO and founder of Xanadu, sits down to explain quantum computing in plain English and why it matters for industries like health care and clean tech, what makes Toronto a global hub for talent, and why this moment is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Canada to lead. 

Transcript

0:04

From the Toronto Region Board of Trade, this is Toronto Talks. Toronto, let's talk quantum computing. Well this past week we saw a quantum leap that could rewrite computer history. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are coming together. A quantum computer uses the weird and wacky world of quantum physics to do things that would be impossible for an ordinary computer. From pharmaceuticals to clean energy, industries are chasing breakthroughs. Quantum computing promises to be the game changer that rewrites the rules. Enter Zandu, a homegrown quantum computing powerhouse making global waves. Under the leadership of founder and CEO Christian Weedbrook, the company is shattering limits, building computers capable of solving problems in minutes that would leave today's supercomputers grinding away for millions of years. So what does this quantum leap mean for the Toronto region economy? Here's Christian Weedbrook in conversation with Jennifer Vandervoak, the board's senior vice president of communications and marketing. Thank you so much, Christian, for being here today. Shocking as this may be, not everyone understands quantum computing. So they're going to smile and politely nod, which is what we don't want people doing today. So maybe we could just kick it off, Christian, with what's quantum 101? What's your version of explaining it to your next door neighbor? And how is it different than traditional computing? For sure. I would say to make everyone at ease is I'm not sure if I or a lot of us really understand quantum. As much as we understand, I'm sure that Xanadu team and people throughout the world understand it, but it's a very counterintuitive thing. And so the first place, let's say I was speaking to my mom, for instance, I would say quantum computing, it's still a computer. So that sort of demystifies it up to a certain point. And the reason why it's called quantum is because it uses properties of quantum physics. Now, you put those two things together, you get a computer that's leveraging laws of quantum physics. And the next big thing is, well, why do you want to do that? And the reason why you want to do that is if you can do those two things, you can now start solving important problems that would have taken millions of years to solve. So really, it's a computer that can do things much, much faster. I also like to kind of bring up one of the team's big advancements. I think it was about two years ago now, two and a half years ago, where we chose a very well-defined problem. It was a math problem. We knew the math problem would be hard, and it's a very important demonstration. The team said, "Let's go head-to-head for this problem against the world's powerfulest supercomputer at the time, against our quantum computer, which we call Borealis. Let's see who solves this problem first." What happened is, it would have taken the world's fastest supercomputer at the time 7 million years to solve. Our computer, Borealis, solved it within two minutes. That's insane. Yeah, and so that really gets people's imagination and now shows a very important proof of principle demonstration of the power. The next step, though, that us and others in the industry are working on, and we're doing all this, as you mentioned, in Toronto, is to now take it from a math problem to important problems in pharmaceuticals, drug discovery, for instance, material design. An example there would be next generation batteries. So really doing things that would have taken thousands or millions of years to get the right answer, and then really speeding up all these things. It's mind-blowing. It's a mind-blowing field just to enter, never mind step in and lead, and found an organization that's really going to take it. But it sounds like you've moved beyond some huge milestones now to really thinking about that from principle into practical, and what's that real applicability in the business world and in the world writ large. So was that really part of what propelled you to start up Sanadu? Was that the vision behind it? And maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. Like what inspired you to stand up one day and say, I'm going to find this company and I'm going to do it here in Toronto? Yeah, I always, as a teenager, love reading books on businesses and people that have, you know, great entrepreneurs and so forth. So always like, well, that would be fun to do. And that really resonated with me. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is myself along with others at Xanadu. We studied, we had PhDs or masters in quantum computing. And that's really where the talent originated from, including, I guess, the first 80 to 100 hires at Xanadu. So it was really about, initially, well, wouldn't it be fun to sort of bring those two things together, things that I was contributing to in the community from a PhD and postdoctoral side of things, along with my love of being an entrepreneur. And so that's really how Xanadu started. And it really is a big swing. In the early days, it's like, well, this would be fun, and let's see how close we can get. But through each milestone that's happened, we really do see this getting closer and closer to reality now, which is really exciting. And so in fact, a couple of days ago, the team had a really big announcement, another big milestone. And so that was published in Nature. And we got some press around it. And basically, the end result is to build a quantum computer that's as large as a data center. So we have quantum computers now. They fit into small rooms, and so do others around the room. But to make them solve these important problems in chemistry and drug discovery that I mentioned, it really needs to be on an acre of land the size of a data center. So we call that a quantum data center.

ANGELA GRIFFIN: 5:52

Acre of land.

JOHN MCCURRY: 5:53

That's right. So it'll have inside, very much like a traditional data center, thousands of server racks that are networked together. Now, this networking, no one's done that before. It's very challenging for quantum computers to be networked. Maybe some have done proof of principle between two chips. We showed networking between 35 chips. And that's where it's in those connections where information can be lost. Yeah, exactly. So the networking is traditionally done through fiber optics, where you're sending light. The key thing about our approach is we actually use light or photons anyways to compute. So it's a bit more natural once you're computing is also at the same time distribute information through Photonix to the nearby server racks. So that's what the team did and really shows you that quantum computing can be scalable now. It's really fascinating. So you said you had about 80 employees, but you're more than twice that now. So it's been a big growth period as well. That's right. We're at like over 220 now. By the end of this year, probably around 250. So it's very exciting. I do remember during COVID, we went from 75 to 150. So it doubled through the first year of COVID. We actually had, it seems strange now, I think to a lot of people, like COVID seems like it's a bit of a blur and did it really happen? But we had team members, over 50% of our workforce is from overseas and they come here to Toronto and love it here and want to become citizens. And so a lot of them during that period would arrive and just be stuck in isolation on the first day that they arrive here. So under those very difficult circumstances, they are still able to perform and do some amazing things. Yeah, that's incredible. And they're still, most of them are still here. They still said, all right, I'm going to stick it out in Canada during this crazy global pandemic. Yeah. I mean, they probably had nowhere else to go, but they stayed here. They love the team. When you get really great people, other great people want to join. It's a classic thing. So being able to do that. yeah as i said half our workforce is overseas so therefore the other half is from canada so we've really been able to uh you know get a lot of talent that's throughout canada and particularly in toronto as well well i mean it's something that we are well well known for is just the the highly educated workforce that we have here the incredible talent that we have here and we know we are facing some challenges here in toronto with housing affordability with the traffic congestion that is starting to make people rethink toronto but we don't want that we need to Part of why we want to talk to incredible people like you is just to show out the potential and how much growth and opportunity is being tapped into. So I do want to tap into that a little bit more, though, around how Toronto does fit into your story, because we actually triggered this conversation and bring you on to the podcast through a conversation with the University of Toronto, who is one of our principal sponsors here at the Borend. And they do play a pretty pivotal role in anchoring the GTA's quantum ecosystem, which was something that I don't think a lot of people realize. But and I'm going to read this because I will not get this right. But they have the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Control, CQIQC, and of course, the Creative Destruction Lab, which I think more people are probably familiar with. But they're driving not just the research side, but the commercialization side, as I understand. 120 stage quantum startups. We house they house 22 quantum companies all right here on our doorstep. So I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about, you know, why Toronto? It sounds like you brought some incredible people over. But why Toronto and how did the region help you to do what you were trying to do? Yeah, it's interesting. So I was actually a postdoc doing research at University of Toronto. And I was there for four years. And as soon as I arrived here, I just loved it. Never wanted to leave again. And so after my postdoc, getting back to the reasons why Xana just started, I didn't want to leave Toronto, and unless you become a professor, you have to leave and try to get a professorship somewhere else in the world. And so I wanted to stay here, and so starting the company based on my background and interest in that was another reason, is wanting to stay in Toronto and doing it all here. So it just, from my side, a personal love of Toronto, it's great. And as you mentioned, there are challenges, but if you look at the history of any city, there's always going to be ebbs and flows, but as long as over time it's headed in the right direction, So it's a wonderful city. And to your point, Creative Destruction Labs, CDL, we were in their program. And we were actually in their AI program. And there is a good overlap between AI and quantum. But the year after us, they started their quantum-specific stream as well. And as you mentioned, many companies have gone through that. So yeah, U of T through CDL has been important for us, a lot of connections. We also have hired a lot of great people from University of Toronto. Some of our most amazing talent has come from U of T. And I always tell people, I was a postdoc at MIT. The best of the best at MIT are equivalent to the best of the best at U of T, without a doubt. Now, maybe there's more of them at MIT because of the popularity, but the best of the best are easily on par. And we've been able to hire a lot of them as well. So some phenomenal people that have been excellent at research, but then just have the other side of the brain for managing and being leaders as well. So it's been very important. The other thing, along with incubators and universities, that's been great is, at least since I've been here, a lot more funding has been made available as well. And that's something you hear is sometimes a challenge for startups and especially innovative startups. So that's really great to hear. It's really encouraging to hear that you've been able to tap into and find that funding and support. I think so. What's really remarkable is so far we've raised $250 million. It's remarkable. Yeah, and a lot of that is from Canadian investors. So our seed in Series A was led by OMERS, the pension fund here. And our last round was actually led by Georgian Ventures, one of the big ones here in Toronto and Canada. Okay. And now we're out raising again. And we have this audacious goal. Now, we may not achieve it in terms of what it is. We'll raise again. But we'd like all the money to be from Canadian investors. So at least a lot of it. So we have that goal. And the reason is we want to, I think, people like to point to past examples or reasons. So if we can do this, hopefully encourages others to do it. Because even though it's gotten much easier to raise in Canada, it's still difficult. And the knee-jerk reaction is to go to the U.S. or go to sovereign wealth funds around the world. But there's no reason to do that. We spend a lot of time in the Middle East and UAE, Singapore, the sovereign wealth funds there, because they have a reputation of taking big swings. But I actually looked at the top 10 sovereign wealth funds slash pension funds in the world. I think Canada has two in the top 10. And those are some big swings that they're taking. So I love that. Yes, exactly. So the more that we can kind of encourage them to invest, I don't think they should be enforced to invest in Canada. but realizing that there's folks like Xanadu that are true good bets that wouldn't be out of place from investors anywhere in the world so we have some of the best investors here you know some of the best startups and some of the best people so it's all coming together and particularly in the last five to ten years so it's exciting time I'm pretty sure we're gonna quote you on what you just said but it's true it's true and it's it's really encouraging and it's really exciting and I think that that opportunity for investment and I think for you to throw that audacious goal out there is really exciting why not why can't exactly that growth be fueled by Canadian investments exactly benefit from everything that you're doing yeah and I think it triggers things it triggers as I mentioned entrepreneurs think well I don't have to go leave Canada now I can you know raise the money here it also helps other investors to think if there's more success stories hey we should be looking more here in Canada so So yeah, it's a case of why not? What's the worst that can happen? We're still talking to all the major investors around the world, but we have a soft spot for Canada. And I'm actually from Australia, but a citizen here now, like a lot of people from Xanadu. So yeah, let's kind of give back and do something incredible here. It's exciting. So I mean, the investment, that growth potential, that support, it sounds like you are able to lock that in and you're getting it here within Canada, which is great. I want to switch a little bit to that commercialization of the technology and the commercialization of quantum computing. And you referred to it, but it's that principle versus practice, right? So maybe you can tell us a little bit about what that challenge looks like for you and how Xanadu's work is now being applied to solve some real world problems. And you mentioned a few sectors and industries, but could you talk about that a little more? Yeah, that's one of the big challenges for quantum computing. And I think most people now are convinced that it's going to change the world, and change the world, to your point, in the commercialization side of things. Right. Our hope is that really we'll look back and say when we're old, old people will look back and we'll think, how did the world survive without quantum computers? Much the same way as imagine if we didn't have digital computing, just regular computers, or we didn't have the internet. The amount of discoveries and the information sharing at your fingertips has really changed society. So the internet, imagine the early days, say early '90s of the trying to commercialize it. People were like, "What is the internet?" Now it's laughable today to even think that. And it's very similar to quantum computing, where the size and the ability to change the world is on par with the internet in the early days. But people didn't know if it was going to take off. They didn't know what the commercialization was. No, they really didn't. No, you can't believe that. They couldn't have imagined, actually. How could you have imagined social media? How could you imagine many things that have come from things that-- everything today-- you really don't have to leave your home to do a lot of things like buying stuff, banking, and anything, communicating with people. So it's really changed things. I think Quantum will be on the same path as that. So a huge promise. But like the early days of the internet, there is a struggle with proving out the commercialization side of things. So us and others in the industry, we do have revenue. But the true revenue will only come once you actually build these quantum data centers. And so another example we get asked all the time, what's the overlap between quantum and AI? We get that from investors. And there's a strong overlap. But it's unclear exactly the commercialization side of that, even though all of us believe that it will happen. So perhaps the biggest commercializations will happen once we have this quantum data center. Because then anyone can kind of log on and run it. and then discover things from that. Having said all that, we focus on next generation batteries. And so once you have this quantum data center, how do people like car companies, battery companies, use that to develop new batteries and also new drugs? So the--

RACHEL ALTERS: 17:17

Are you doing something with Volkswagen in that regard? We are, actually. So they were invested in our last round, a great supporter. We work with them. We have joint patents and so forth. So yeah, and other car companies. And the idea is really, you know, take pharmaceuticals. It's well known that to take a drug from conception through computer simulations through drug trials, it can take up to 10 years, one to two billions of dollars. So a decade and up to $2 billion. Now here's the kicker, 90% of the candidates fail.- Right.- So 90% of your money you've wasted, 90% of the decade you have wasted. Quantum computing offers the chance to flip that. So now you can now solve things instead of a decade, potentially solve stuff within a year. And the idea there is that you're searching for the possible candidates or drugs that you want to actually synthesize or make. It's now given you the most correct answers to actually do. So you don't have to waste all your time and money. So imagine getting vaccines or getting cures to cancer or anything like that. Instead of taking decades, you can now get it in principle in a year. Now, we can't do that yet, and a lot of this is based on the promise of quantum computing, but it gets back to this idea that it took 7 million years to solve this math problem. We can do it in two minutes. How can we apply that to things in drug discovery and material design? Well, and that sounds like the perfect sort of scenario where we would look back. We'll be looking back in 20 years, 10 years, who knows, and say, how did we even pursue a new drug in the past without this technology, without this ability to just completely expedite the process.- Exactly, imagine if we didn't have email and you'd have to write letters, just as a very simple example. Like, you imagine the amount of ideas and the slowness of communication. You know, I love reading about the early 1900s about ideas that physicists have in their sort of first 25 years of quantum physics and the development, theoretical development. They would write letters, you know, say Einstein to Dirac or whoever. It'd take months for them to get the reply. A ship. Yeah, exactly. Isn't that crazy? And now, if they were alive today, or it was quiver, if they had the internet back 100 years ago, the ideas and the discoveries you could imagine would happen much, much faster. So that's just email, which we take for granted. So now you throw quantum computing, and it's going to be-- it's a very hopeful and remarkable decade ahead for us. Yeah, it's a great analogy. Yeah, the ships versus email. And even at my first email, I didn't get my first email until I was in university. And there was no one to email. The only people you could email were the other people in your school. And now I've got two teenagers who just, they're constant communication with all their friends, with everyone. It really is a different world. Well, here's a very funny example. When the first telephone lines were installed, it's hard to really understand this today. I can't even really understand it. But people didn't know what to use them for. Right. Like, why would you pick up a phone and talk to someone? Like, that just seems weird. Yeah. You didn't have that habit. So they tried to find ways to entice people to use the telephone. And one of them was you could pick up your phone and hear a concert being played. Someone would hold a phone at a concert being played in a center somewhere, and they could pick it up and listen to the concert. So they didn't have to go there. But the idea to get people to talk on the phone, like you said with the email, you had no one to talk to. And it's like, you know, my grandma was a famous example in our family where I got my bank book. I don't want to, like, do my banking online. even though you could do it in a second, she would still like to take her bank book, go down the bank, they would stamp it. And there was a lot of feeling of like security. It's like, they're not gonna cheat me and stuff.- There's something physical about it.- Something physical, exactly.- Yeah, well, it's really exciting. So a lot of what you're doing here though, not just, it doesn't just put Xanadu at an advantage, but it's really helping to propel Canada to have an advantage in this very, probably competitive global quantum computing sector. And are there any disadvantages that you've encountered here or barriers that you face that you are looking to overcome from a policy perspective, a partnership perspective, maybe looking where could government step in more to support? We know we've talked about a lot of the advantages, but where are you facing those hurdles? I think the things that we've seen great improvements on are things that could be improved even more. So we've been very lucky to get government funding. a couple of years ago based on this seven million years to two minutes demonstration. We were able to get $40 million Canadian from the Canadian government from a strategic innovation fund. So, I mean, that's incredible. Now, without getting too greedy, if you look at the US, usually things are 10 times the size of that. So there's always going to be limitations of things that we can do. But, you know, I mentioned before pension funds and investing more in, I would say, moonshots, where it's very risky, limited revenue. We don't tick all the usual metrics that you would want a pension fund to do, but maybe slicing off a little bit of a rounding error amount of money and take these swings. Again, it's not my money. I don't think I should tell anyone what to do with their money, but that would be really nice to see. Now, we're seeing these things happen, but if they could happen much faster. A little more appetite for risk is what we're talking about. That's what we need to see in Canada. Yeah, and they call that, I believe, risk capital. So seeing more of this risk capital, I think, would be really great. And since I arrived here 15 years ago, and the story's the same today as it was 15 years ago, and the same as in Australia where I'm from, where it's like, let others take the big swings. And now there's good reasons why this plays out in a positive way. If you look at the global financial crisis, the banks were less risky and more conservative, and it helped Canada. So I don't think you need to overhaul things dramatically, but really take off, say, a slither of funding and then apply them to things like this. You know, even like I've heard a lot of people talk about it would be great if the government could do a billion-dollar deep tech fund or even have their own version of a sovereign wealth fund. You know, we have pension funds, but have a sovereign wealth fund. I think these sort of things would be fantastic for deep tech. Right. It could almost be the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to risk capital. I haven't heard of that phrase, but that's good. Just push forward and just open that door and open that willingness to see risk and potential. Risk as potential, really. It's true. Xanadu is a great example of that. We started off with OMERS investing. Our first round led by OMERS was $2.5 million. So that's one one-hundredth of what we've raised now. But it wouldn't have started without OMERS investing in the early days and taking that swing. And the swing, $2 million by them is nothing compared to $250 million in total. But at the time, that was all the money in the world. And I still don't get any more excited than thinking of that first $2 million that went into the bank. But it allows us to start, allows us to hire and really get great people to prove what we can do. And then it becomes somewhat easier sometimes to raise more. It's always difficult. But yeah, I think it all comes back to attitude and sort of having a positive attitude changing the mindset. So what comes next? Are there any big milestones coming up for you and for Xanadu in 2025, 2026, or any specific projects you're really interested in? Yeah, our end goal is to build this quantum data center. So we aim to start building that in 2029, which is creeping up now. It's not too far away. And where will that be? Well, we want to build it-- our end goal is to build these data centers all around the world. But we're proudly Canadian. We'd love it to be in Toronto, maybe in this park across the street here.

MARIAH KAUFMAN: 25:14

Big open space just waiting for a data center.

RONNIE ELDRIDGE: 25:17

Exactly. Actually, there's a lot of data centers already, traditional data centers, I think, on Front Street here. But we are looking around this area. So we'd love to do something here in Toronto. And so that's our end goal. But as mentioned, two days ago, we had probably one of the biggest milestones ever in the company and one of the biggest in Canada or in the world. So we're still enjoying the release of this two days ago. It was a new Nature paper, and this was the scalability issue that Xanadu team solved. We'll have some more. It's all about the hardware. So we'll have some more in the coming this year as well. And so yeah, it's a very exciting time. And the team is-- every time we get some hardware milestones, it really re-energizes the team as well. Yeah, a milestone always just gets people to start looking to the next one. It does, yes. It's a jet fuel that way. So this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much. We do like to-- so we started before the cameras and the audio started rolling, we were talking about books. And we like to end each conversation with our guests to get a little bit more about them. So everyone loves a good recommendation, and particularly if it comes from a quantum computing super genius with a PhD in physics and a postdoc from MIT and University of Toronto. So tell us about yourself. What are you reading or listening to these days? First off, I'm the opposite to a super genius. That's for sure. You can ask any of the people at Xanadu. I'm reading two things at the moment. So it's always biographies. So I've had this book for years, and I've never started it. So it's always been a bookshelf. But I started a couple days ago. It's a book on Andrew Carnegie. So reading that. And these are very fascinating figures. like the tycoons or industrialists of 100 years ago. It's very fascinating. So reading that and at the same time, I'm reading a book on Rafa Nadal as well. I love tennis. Australian opens on at the moment. And Nadal is one of my favorites. He's retired recently, but reading a book on him. So all the books I read, even if it's about an industrialist from over 100 years ago or Rafael Nadal, they all have the same common characteristics. It's very fascinating. You know, nothing beats hard work, nothing beats a good attitude, nothing beats persistence. And you can go back hundreds of years. And for people that have, you know, achieved something, whatever that may be, they all have a similar overlaps to why they achieve stuff. Yeah, it's probably very inspiring and motivating. And when you see that continuous thread to see someone who did it, someone who, you know, broke through and probably went through a lot of challenges and uphill challenges to get there. That's a good point. No one ever gets through life scot-free. Right. That's the other thing. whether you're rich, poor, achieve a lot, achieve less, life doesn't care. Life will come at you if you live long enough. There's always something. Even if you look at it, you know, we all die. That doesn't sound pleasant. But we know that's the ending for all of us, every human that's ever lived. But, you know, how do you make it meaningful? And I think one of the things that we do at Xanadu is we have a mission that provides meaning for us. So very excited. Yeah, one foot in front of the other. Well, it is such a pleasure to see you. And thank you so much for coming in and talking to us again today. So Christian Weedbrook, CEO and founder of Xanadu Quantum Computing, happening right here in the Toronto region. It's really exciting and we can't wait to hear what comes next. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening to Toronto Talks. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And keep talking Toronto. Our voice drives meaningful change.