The ultimate 2025 #CDNtech quiz

Xanadu claimed to have figured out how to network quantum computers together, one of the key challenges facing the industry. Its Aurora computer consists of four modular and independent server racks that are photonically interconnected and networked together.

By the end of the year, Xanadu struck a deal to go public on the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange through a $3.6-billion USD special purpose acquisition company.

PixMob provided LED bracelets to Super Bowl LIX attendees. The bracelets were used to create synchronized light displays during the pre-game ceremony and throughout the event. When Kendrick Lamar wrapped up his halftime show performance, which included Grammy-winning Drake diss track Not Like Us, the stands spelled out “GAME OVER” using PixMob’s tech.

Canadian AI leader Richard Sutton received the award often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of computing” in March. Sutton won the award, named after British mathematician Alan Turing, alongside his American colleague Andrew Barto for their work developing the foundations of reinforcement learning.

In 2025, Sutton said humans should look at AI with “courage, pride, and a sense of adventure” and pushed back against approaches to regulating the technology based on fear.

Katy Perry was among the star-studded Blue Origin crew, which also included legendary broadcast journalist Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez, who is the fiancée of Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos. 

When this question was originally featured in an April edition of the BetaKit Quiz, we did not anticipate its eventual Canadian connection. By the end of 2025, Perry hard-launched her relationship with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

Shopify joined the Nasdaq 100 Index on May 19, 2025. The Nasdaq 100 follows the exchange’s biggest listed companies outside of the financial sphere, including Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia. 

At the time, the company’s share price got a nice bump from the news.

Cohere inked new partnerships with the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom in June as it expanded its offerings beyond enterprise AI into the public sector. The partnerships aimed to leverage Cohere’s AI tools and expertise “to enhance government services and national sovereignty,” the company said at the time. 

The agreement was one of the first indications of the Canadian government’s MOU procurement strategy. The federal government expanded the agreement in August as it worked towards making Cohere a “Canadian champion.”

Georgian found that most Canadian companies are still walking the AI adoption race. The report, which was released during Startupfest in Montréal, noted that Canadian firms with annual revenue greater than $5 million are trailing their global peers in implementing AI.

Georgian classifies companies based on a scale of “AI maturity,” with the categories of crawl, walk, jog, and run. Only seven percent of Canadian technical respondents identified their companies as “runners,” compared to 17 percent globally.

Ron was the co-founder and CEO of Uber Freight. At Waabi, Ron was charged with shaping the Canadian company’s go-to-market strategy and expanding key industry partnerships.

In December, The Globe and Mail reported that Waabi was closing in on a $750-million USD financing round that would value the driverless truck company at $3-billion USD.

Kardium’s Globe System is designed to treat atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat disorder that affects more than 59 million people globally. 

In July 2025, Kardium raised $340 million CAD to secure regulatory approval and expand manufacturing for its device. In September, Kardium’s Globe System was granted pre-market approval in the US, which CEO Kevin Chaplin called “the most significant milestone in the life of Kardium.”

Steve Schneider filmed his son’s viral home run on the first pitch of Game 5 of the World Series using Meta glasses. “Yeah, I mean his Meta glasses are a little bit … they’re kinda dumb. I don’t know why he wears them all the time,” Davis said in a news conference after the fact.

(We won’t talk about Game 7, though.)

The 2025 budget adopted some of the proposed SR&ED reforms from Shopify president Harley Finklestein. Taking effect April 1, 2026, an elective pre-claim approval process grants technical approval before a project moves ahead, with processing time cut in half to 90 days. 

If you need a refresher on all the tech and innovation commitments in last fall’s budget, give BetaKit’s coverage a read. 

Agentic storefronts allow Shopify merchants to sell their products across popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. 

The new offering was released as part of the winter edition of the biannual Shopify Editions newsletter, called “the RenAIssance edition,” which largely focused on new AI features for sellers. Some Shopify sellers are reportedly already seeing much of their traffic driven by ChatGPT.