Blackberry co-founders start $100M quantum tech fund

Blackberry co-founders Mike Laziridis and Doug Freginhave launcheda $100 million dollar private fundtoboost the development of Canada's fledgling quantum computing industry.

Quantum Valley Investments, based in Waterloo, Ont., "will provide financial and intellectual capital" for the development and "commercialization of breakthroughs" in quantum information science, said a news release announcing the new fund.

A statement from Laziridis and Fregin said they believe thefund willlead tothe creation of new jobs and industriesand help establish Waterlooas "Canada's Quantum Valley."

Quantum computing technology makes use of the strange laws of quantum physics that cause very small particlesthose around the size of an atom or smallerto behave very differently than those on the human scale. For example, while conventional computing relies on bits of data represented by either a "1" or a "0", quantum computing makes use of "qubits" that can encode information as both a "1" and a "0" at the same time due to aquantum property known as superposition. That means quantum computers with a given number of qubits can store exponentially more informationthan conventional computers with the samenumber of bits.Theyare also better at solving certain types of problems.

The technology is still in its infancy and very few quantum computing products are available commercially so far.

Thenew fund hopes to harness the existing developments and breakthroughs that have already been discovered over the past 12 years in Waterloo, when Laziridis started investing locally in quantum physics and technology research.

3 quantum institutes

In 1999, he gave $100 million to help establish the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics,which also got matching funds from the private and public sector. The institute's nine research areas include particle physics, quantum fields and strings, quantum foundations andquantum information.

Laziridis has also donated over $100 million to the University of Waterloofor itsInstitute for Quantum Computing, established in 2002, and its Quantum Nano-Centre, which also housesthe WaterlooInstitute forNanotechnology,started in 2008.

Laziridis and Fregin said they believe that breakthroughs at the three institutes will "lead to transformative commercialization opportunities" in the Waterloo region the way discoveries at Bell Labs led to the rise of California's Silicon Valley.

The pairfounded the smartphone technology company formerly known as Research in Motion in 1984. The company abandonedits originalnamein favour of BlackBerry, its well-knownsmartphone brand name,earlier this year.

Laziridis wasthe company'sco-CEO up until last January, when bothhe and its other CEO, Jim Balsillie, resignedand were replaced by current CEO Thorsten Heins. The company had been losing its share of the smartphone market to competitors such as Apple and its share price hasplunged.

• BlackBerry's roller coaster ride

Fregin retired from the companyin 2007 after serving as vice-president of operations.