TECH

Canadians will make pioneering advances in artificial intelligence, driverless vehicles and quantum computing. And we'll all finally get plugged into high-speed internet.

1 Jeremy Hansen Will Fly to the Moon

For the first time in history, a Canadian astronaut will venture to or rather, nearthe moon. Jeremy Hansen, a 48-year-old pilot from London, Ontario, will fly with three American astronauts on the Artemis II Mission: a NASA-led, 10-day lunar flyby. The main goal is to confirm that all the spacecraft's systems operate as designed. The mission is considered a crucial step in establishing NASA's long-term presence on the moon and, eventually, Mars. Hansen, a father of three, has been training intensively at NASA facilities in Houston and Cape Canaveral. He launches in September.

2 Rural Ontario Will Plug Into High-Speed Internet By the end of this year, the Ontario government aims to have every community connected to high-speed internet. It's a lofty goal-a million Ontarians still don't have high-speed connections-but the province is committing nearly $4 billion to the effort. Last summer, it announced that it had at that point finalized more than $2.4 billion for 270 high-speed projects, which will connect more than 500,000 homes.

Similar efforts are under way in Alberta, B.C. and other provinces-all meaningful steps toward the federal government's goal of connecting every Canadian to highspeed internet by 2030.

3 Starlink Direct-to-Cell Service Will Debut in Canada

Elon Musk said last August that Starlink would deploy mobile-phone internet service to Canada late in 2025. Powered by more than 250 satellites, the system will develop a fast network, free of dead zones, that will allow people to get online from anywhere, any time.