Quantum computing promises a rapidly growing industry sector, data from McKinsey suggest, with potential to out-grow today’s US$670 billion semiconductor market.
However, there is a chronic global shortage of quantum expertise to support this growth, finds a new report from Surrey’s Quantum Algorithms Institute, a non-profit organization that facilitates collaboration among industry, academia in Canada.
“The most striking feature of the quantum sector in Canada and around the world is the shortage of quantum talent which threatens to slow progress to multi-billion-dollar market opportunities,” posits Louise Turner, chief executive officer of the Quantum Algorithms Institute.
While the quantum talent shortage problem is indeed a global issue, Canada’s quantum workforce offers a particularly “good illustration of this talent gap,” according to the Canadian Quantum Ecosystem Report.
The 2024 report estimates that just 0.01% of Canada’s workforce is in the quantum research and business communities.
Rapidly building a workforce that can provide the skills and expertise to capitalize on the commercialization of quantum “will require urgent and radical rethinking of ways to educate, train, and grow the quantum workforce,” QAI’s report reads, especially “in the face of existing talent shortages for deep tech companies which are already being exacerbated by the demand for talent in the newly growing AI sector.”
The report points to the longstanding semiconductor industry, which employs more than two million people. Already growing at a rate of 100,000 more people per year, the industry remains challenged to find enough skilled workers to support its growth.
“It is difficult to see how a newly minted quantum industry will have enough skilled people to support [the market] over the next 16 years without significant changes in education, training and professional development programs for quantum in countries all around the world,” the report warns.
Beyond a lack of skilled talent in the quantum space to access, QAI’s report also found retention concerns: Primarily due to differences in salary, there remains a net brain drain, “mainly from Canada to the US.”
Despite suffering from both brain drain and a global talent shortage, Canada is “overall punching above its weight in all aspects of quantum,” the report concludes.
While our quantum workforce may appear small (roughly 4,000), our country in fact houses 5% of the word’s quantum talent pool, an order of magnitude higher than our representation of the world’s population (0.5%).
This workforce is behind a “vibrant quantum business sector” comprising companies such as D-Wave, Xanadu, Anyon, Photonic, 1QBit, and Good Chemistry, who are helping pave the way on both scientific advances and development of market-ready quantum solutions. Canada’s quantum computing research output is also top-10 globally.
“Canada is in a leadership position in quantum, building on decades of world-class quantum research,” Turner said. “Our quantum workforce is strong and growing and we’re one of the world’s leaders in commercializing quantum computing, hardware, and software.”
