Clickex recently attended Quantum Days 2026 in Victoria, BC, hosted by Deep Tech Canada.
Throughout the conference, one theme kept coming up across talks, panels, and hallway conversations: Canada’s quantum sector is no longer only talking about what might be possible someday. In 2026 and going forward, more of the conversation is about what can be deployed, adopted, measured, funded, secured, and sold. Canada’s National Quantum Strategy came up repeatedly. But so did a more obvious signal: the number of Department of National Defence attendees in the room. The federal government clearly sees national security risks and opportunities here, which is a different posture than simply supporting research and innovation.
The ecosystem is in an interesting moment.
Researchers, investors, businesses, and governments are building the connective tissue required to move quantum work from labs into the field. If you work anywhere near deep tech policy, commercialization, partnerships, or procurement, it’s hard to ignore how much the near future will be shaped by what gets proven and launched in this space.
In short, word has spread that quantum technology is no longer just “five to ten years away.”
Quantum is still difficult to communicate
The conference itself was a mixed bag in terms of who it was really for. Was it researchers? Investors? Government partners?
Perhaps all of the above.
And the content reflected that. Some sessions assumed postdoc-level mathematics and went deep fast, with phrases like “a tight-binding Hamiltonian on a non-Euclidean lattice.” Other sessions stayed at a higher level and focused on collaboration, ecosystem design, and commercialization pathways.
The conference certainly showcased frontier science, as it should, but an interesting shift occurred in discussions about what happens between discovery and adoption:
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standards and metrology
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infrastructure access
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procurement pathways
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training and talent pipelines
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industry engagement
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hybrid systems
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realistic timelines
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application framing
There were no “big hype” announcements. No “AGI moment” à la Sam Altman. Still, the overall direction felt clear: the space is moving toward commercialization outside the lab, with real problems being solved, and real contracts being signed.
Commercialization is no longer a side conversation
A recurring pattern in the commercialization material was a stronger focus on customer-defined problems.
In the quantum commercialization panel, there were examples of specific operational bottlenecks being tackled with quantum after classical systems had been pushed to their limits. The emphasis was on practicality over abstract promises, and more narrow performance gaps (though with real business consequences).
Paul Terry, CEO of Photonic Inc., framed it in a way that should become a default lens for the sector. Companies don’t care much about the “shininess of our qubits.” They care about what algorithms will run, what performance they will get, and whether a system can answer the questions they actually have. He connected that mindset to quantum resource estimation and a more application-driven market.
This is a useful correction for the sector.
When technical teams, founders, and ecosystem organizations lead with internal technical fascination, they lose the people who drive adoption and funding. When they lead with constraints, timelines, and measurable outcomes, it becomes easier to evaluate what’s real, what’s next, and what’s still growing at the laboratory level.
Spinouts and positioning
Quantum has one ongoing issue in particular, where spinouts and commercialization attempts are often researcher-led. Which is the natural path for such research-heavy tech…
…But it means the teams leading the go-to-market charge are maybe not as familiar with things like market positioning, branding, or even the sales activities needed to source partners, investors, and customers.
So even as quantum solutions become more real, there’s still a disconnect in how those solutions get communicated. And the market is waiting passively: there were buyers and investors listening intently to researchers’ presentations and networking in the exhibitor area all week.
Still, it was hard to miss how many teams are desperate for funding or partnerships while lacking a clear way to connect with the right partner. They know the science and they can explain the mechanism. But they often struggle to explain the value, the use case, the purchasing path, and the “what has to be true” for adoption.
That communication gap is one of the limiting factors for spinouts.
Canada’s ecosystem advantage is real, but it needs coordination
The biggest takeaway from the event was Canada’s distributed quantum ecosystem.
There is genuine emphasis on collaboration and cross-disciplinary work. Researchers, businesses, and institutions across the country are actively coordinating, and the federal government is advocating for further development. In a world where sovereignty, talent, and capital markets all intersect, there is a growing need for accessibility and collaboration to bring quantum research and technology into practical use.
There’s also a talent constraint.
The pipeline of quantum researchers and practitioners is not infinite. To take quantum out of the lab and put it into practice, Canada needs more industry-relevant development opportunities outside limited-term research roles. Internships, commercial placements, and practical experience are paramount. Because if Canadian graduates don’t have access to industry-relevant development opportunities outside the lab, there is appetite elsewhere for their talent and we risk significant outflow from Canada in coming years.
Government alignment, standards, and procurement are now central
Marina Gertzvolf’s (Nexus For Quantum Technologies, National Research Council Canada) presentation reinforced another important theme: Canada’s quantum progress will depend as much on system design as on scientific discovery.
Dr. Gertzvolf described NRC’s role in terms of federal mandates and government priorities – not just research curiosity, which is exactly how a national capability-building institution should talk. She also highlighted standards and metrology as a critical requirement when moving quantum technologies from lab work toward production and comparable performance claims.
Her remarks on challenge programs and collaborative structures also point to a practical Canadian model: joint work across academia, industry, and government, with measurable outputs in talent development, performance improvements, and commercialization outcomes.
On a separate panel, the procurement issue was named more directly. Elise Usunier, Chief Commercial Officer, Zero Point Cryogenics, argued that Canada needs portfolio thinking across quantum technologies and highlighted that some Canadian startups are ready to sell today, but need procurement timelines and mechanisms that match startup realities. She also stressed that the market often doesn’t realize some parts of the sector are already here now, not all years away.
This is a critical policy and commercialization point, because if procurement stays optimized for established vendors and long cycles, Canada risks not funding innovation and losing startups and spinouts to more investment-friendly regions.
Quantum in 2026 and beyond
The main take-home point from Quantum Days 2026 was that the next bottleneck in quantum is communication quality across the adoption chain.
If researchers only talk to researchers, and the public-facing talks all require a physics degree, the quantum space will be at real risk of lost opportunity because the right people didn’t get the right message. And this is already established to a degree, with some handwaving and a “10-15 years away” mindset, or even conflating quantum tech with AI – the solutions available today are in great need of a means to communicate value without getting lost in the math.
Because the main issue in quantum isn’t that research isn’t advancing quickly enough (it is), or that real solutions to real-world problems aren’t available today (they are). It’s that collectively, almost everyone in quantum feels the need to start every explanation with the math and science, and, frankly, the internet didn’t “take off” because the market understood HTML and distributed server resources. Quantum spinouts and entrepreneurs will need to develop their organizations’ communications function: accurate storytelling that highlights benefits and constraints without losing the audience.
As quantum moves faster towards marketability, clarity will be a competitive advantage.