Prof. Mauritz Kop Chairs CIGI's Quantum Nexus Panel and Roundtable: What Sarrao, Karanicolas, Dekker, Murphy, and Minssen Said (Video)
CIGI has published the recording of The Quantum Nexus, the public expert panel that our founder Prof. Mauritz Kop chaired on October 21, 2026, as CIGI Senior Fellow and Principal Investigator of a project supported by Canada's Department of National Defence. Kop opened with one question: how do democracies keep their secrets safe and their science open? He set out the Nexus, which treats patents, trade secrets, export controls, supply chains, and standards as one governance control plane, and his LSI test for measures that are least trade-restrictive, security-sufficient, and innovation-preserving.
Five Experts on Supply Chains, Migration, IP, Standards, and Europe
SLAC Director John Sarrao urged allies to lean open while staying prudent. Michael Karanicolas of Dalhousie examined Canada's post-quantum cryptography roadmap and the privacy stakes of the transition. Patent lawyer Tina Dekker explained why owning IP does not by itself permit a company to export it. Michael P. A. Murphy of Queen's University showed why NATO standards need implementation, and Timo Minssen of the University of Copenhagen proposed interoperability and IP conditions for publicly funded quantum testbeds. CIGI's Tracey Forrest set out the institute's quantum program.
A Closed-Door Roundtable and Six Emerging Scholars
A roundtable under the CIGI Rule followed, with officials from Ottawa, experts from Washington and Los Alamos, and six Emerging Scholars mentored by Kop. Our article summarizes every speaker and what the discussion means for companies that build, buy, or invest in quantum technology.
Prof. Mauritz Kop Speaks at Quantum Innovation 2026 in Nagoya, Japan, With Elham Kashefi, Dorit Aharonov, and Google Quantum AI
Prof. Mauritz Kop, founder of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology and of Quentir, speaks at Quantum Innovation 2026 in Nagoya, the International Symposium on Quantum Science, Technology and Innovation organized by Japan's Quantum Technology Innovation Hubs from December 8 to 11, 2026. His talk, Before Q-Day: Responsible Quantum Innovation, Standards, and the Post-Quantum Transition, closes the Practical Quantum Computing session on December 8, and he will also visit a quantum computer in Japan with the delegation.
Japan's Quantum Ecosystem in One Program
Co-organized by the Cabinet Office, three ministries, JST, RIKEN, AIST, NICT, Q-STAR, and leading universities, and sponsored by Fujitsu, Toyota, Toshiba, and Hitachi, the symposium brings keynotes by Dorit Aharonov, Amir Yacoby, and Hoi-Kwong Lo and invited talks by Elham Kashefi and leaders from Google Quantum AI, IonQ, Intel, the Weizmann Institute, the University of Toronto, and RIKEN.
Standards, Assurance, and Allied Cooperation
After two talks on quantum cryptanalysis, Kop closes the session from 5:40 to 6:10 PM Japan time with a talk on responsible quantum innovation, standards, and the post-quantum migration. Our article also profiles Japan's quantum hardware at RIKEN, Fujitsu, Quantinuum, and IBM, the industrial setting of Nagoya, and Japan Quantum Week.
Prof. Mauritz Kop, Principal Investigator, Leads CIGI's Quantum Nexus Workshop on Canadian Strategic Advantage, With Six Emerging Scholars
On Wednesday, October 21, 2026, Prof. Mauritz Kop, Senior Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), leads the workshop of the CIGI project The Quantum Nexus: A Framework for Canadian Strategic Advantage in a Contested Domain. A public online expert panel from 12:00 to 1:00 PM Eastern Time is followed by a closed-door roundtable with senior officials, laboratory leaders, and legal and industry experts from Canada, the United States, and Europe.
Supply Chains, Quantum-AI, Standards, and Allied Strategy
SLAC Director John Sarrao, Dalhousie's Michael Karanicolas, Tina Dekker, Queen's University's Michael P. A. Murphy, and Copenhagen's Timo Minssen each take one front of the quantum competition, with CIGI's Tracey Forrest opening the session. The roundtable includes Dominic Rochon of the Privy Council Office, CIPO's Konstantinos Georgaras, former U.S. export-control chief Kevin J. Wolf, Michele Mosca, and Larry Diamond. The project, funded by the Department of National Defence's MINDS program, aims at strategic advantage for Canada and its allies.
Six Emerging Scholars and the Founding of CIGI
Six emerging scholars, personally selected and mentored by Kop, join the workshop and will contribute to the final CIGI report. Our article also traces Kop's work with Canada, from the Council of Canadian Academies panel chaired by the late Raymond Laflamme to the Nexus paper, and the history of CIGI, founded in 2001 by BlackBerry's Jim Balsillie in Waterloo's Quantum Valley.