Future Archives: September 09, 2014
Following Orientation Week 2014 was the grand opening of the long-anticipated Quantum Nano Centre. The original purpose of the structure was to attract new students to UW’s Nanotechnology Engineering program with shiny windows, hexagonal frames, and the promise of high-end clean rooms and exclusive lecture halls. After five classes graduated without seeing the building open, suspicions were raised about whether the QNC was actually being built or whether it was all just a marketing ploy. Pictures taken in 2011 showed large empty rooms and labs, and actors were allegedly hired to stand in the pictures wearing construction gear to create the illusion of progress. Another theory is that the QNC construction site was just part of the University’s continued effort to eliminate all campus green space.
A university representative denied these claims and explained instead: “The actual reason for the extra delay is that, following initial delays due to falling windows and competing campus construction, the original design was no longer innovative. Because this clashed with the Waterloo brand, we had to innovate a new construction method such that the increasing rate of nanotechnology innovation would not threaten the QNC being innovative on its projected opening. We basically had to beat Moore’s Law with innovative innovation. Double innovation, it’s so intense.”
Because the features of the QNC are so innovative they have yet to hit the market, the exact construction tactics are not public information and are undergoing patent approval. Information has leaked that the building’s interior was self-assembled. The reason the building frame was on campus for many years before opening was because nanotechnology engineers had not yet figured out how to scale up molecular self-assembly methods to be commercially useful, but the QNC is proof that they can scale this up by 10 orders of magnitude or more.
There are now conflicts developing between the Institute for Quantum Computing and Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and the UW staff who designed the self-assembling QNC. The staff members argue that, because they discovered it, the QNC actually belongs to them now. The university plans to settle with them by commissioning their technology to build three new engineering buildings, E15, E16, and E17, to go on top of the existing antique E2 and E3 buildings. The buildings will only take about 2 weeks to build themselves, so stay posted next issue for their grand openings.
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