Canada Backs Xanadu With C$195 Million to Build Quantum Plant in Former Soup Factory A gutted Campbell Soup factory on Toronto's west side is set to become the production hub for Canada's most ambitious quantum computing bet, after the federal government committed C$195 million in repayable financing to Xanadu Quantum Technologies (XNDU). The announcement, made Friday inside the 158,000-square-foot Art Deco building in Etobicoke that once churned out soup cans, marks the largest single government investment in quantum manufacturing in Canadian history. The funding will anchor Project OPTIMISM, Xanadu's plan to build advanced photonics facilities for fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computers. Evan Solomon, Canada's minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, framed the deal as both an economic and a national security imperative. Speaking against the backdrop of the Canada-U.S. trade war and repeated sovereignty threats from Washington, he said the technology is too strategically important to leave to other countries. "The countries that will have built what's called a fault-tolerant quantum computer would have the capacity to break cybersecurity," Solomon said. "This is why China, the United States, Europe, everyone's racing. And the best companies are right here in Canada, and the IP is in Canada." From soup cans to qubits The facility, which Xanadu has named Inception, is expected to cost C$893 million in total and create up to 275 highly skilled jobs. It will house cleanrooms, 24/7 test facilities, and what the company describes as first-of-its-kind heterogeneous integration capabilities, combining diverse photonic elements on a single chip. Xanadu CEO Christian Weedbrook said the plant will dramatically compress the company's supply chain. Packaging and assembly work that currently takes outside contractors up to three months could be completed in-house in as little as eight hours once Inception is operational. "A building that once fed Canadians will now help the