Under the microscope: A digital revolution for metrology

A blog post by Georgette Macdonald, Director General of the National Research Council of Canada’s Metrology Research Centre, elected member of the International Committee of Weights and Measures (CIPM) and President of the CIPM’s Consultative Committee on Mass.

Metrology is the science of measurement and has a long history as an international and collaborative field. In 1875, 17 nation states signed the Metre Convention, which marked the beginning of a measurement revolution. This treaty laid the groundwork for the creation of the International System of Units (SI) and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM).

Nearly 150 years later, almost every industrialized country, including Canada, has a national metrology institute responsible for realizing and disseminating SI units through national and international networks, or quality infrastructure.

As Canada’s national metrology institute, the National Research Council of Canada’s (NRC) Metrology Research Centre plays an active role in ensuring that Canadian measurement standards are recognized worldwide.

Our metrologists participate in a variety of the CIPM consultative committees to ensure that Canadian industries and laboratories can engage in international trade and scientific collaboration with confidence, and to guarantee the equivalence of Canadian measurement standards with those of other countries.

The role of the CIPM is to oversee and provide strategic guidance to the BIPM and ensure that the SI remains precise, reliable and aligned with scientific and technological developments.

A digital SI revolution

Following the redefinition of the SI in 2019, the global metrology community turned its focus to a digital SI revolution. Disruptive digital technologies pose challenges that require digital representations of physical quantities, as well as measurement data to support a digital transformation of the quality infrastructure.

I recently had the opportunity to share NRC Metrology’s approach to digital transformation, alongside international experts in metrology, during the International Metrology Congress. As Canada's national metrology institute and as an international leader in the field, our research centre is leading a 5-year strategy to tackle innovation challenges and enhance Canada's position in trade through precise measurement. A key piece of this strategy involves a digital transformation that is aligned with Canada’s Digital Ambition 2022 and the NRC’s priorities for digital and quantum technologies.

NRC Metrology’s digital transformation focuses on 3 strategic pillars:

• Interoperability to promote seamless communication across metrology systems
• Governance to establish guidelines and structures for a digital shift
• The use of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data principles to enhance data transparency and accessibility

Over the next 5 years, our metrology teams will pilot projects and collaborate with international forums.

Known for our international leadership, NRC metrologists are also playing a pivotal role in the larger metrology digital revolution. I serve as the Vice-Chair of the new CIPM Forum on Metrology and Digitalization to coordinate digital transformation strategies worldwide. Our sector lead for digital metrology, Ryan White, chairs the CIPM’s Task Group on Metrology Semantics, which takes a comprehensive and integrated approach to supporting the CIPM's digital transformation by identifying common enterprise capabilities.

At an industry level, the NRC also co-organized an inaugural quality infrastructure workshop with NCSL International, and are actively developing an open platform for the development and governance of standard metrological metadata in collaboration with metrologists and software experts.

Standards for a digital age

Technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence are already impacting society in a variety of ways. The metrological community needs to be able to support the innovation and effective implementation of these emerging and disruptive technologies.

In the field of quantum computing, qubits need to be measured and controlled with extreme precision for accurate computation and error correction. Digital metrology provides the standardized frameworks and machine-readable data necessary for such precise measurements, enabling researchers to maintain consistency and traceability. This ensures the reliability of quantum experiments and results, which is crucial for advancing quantum technologies and integrating them into broader technological applications.

The international metrology community is focused on advancing measurement science for a digital age, and Canada must continue to lead throughout this evolution by embracing an innovative and digital mindset.

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