British Columbia has around 30 robotics companies. More than half are under ten years old. We have world-class research at UBC, SFU and BCIT, a resource-based and maritime economy full of exactly the hard physical problems robotics is built to solve, and some of the largest industrial buyers in the country in our backyard.

And yet many of our robotics companies find their first paying customer somewhere else. We build robots for other people's factories, then wonder why our own productivity is flat.

That gap is no longer subtle. Canadian businesses produce nearly 30% less per hour worked than their U.S. peers — about $74.70 versus $97.00 in 2023. Canada ranks roughly 18th in the world for robot adoption, and most of what we have sits in Ontario's auto sector. Meanwhile B.C. generates 14% of Canada's GDP and has led the country's growth for a decade, which makes our productivity gap a national problem, not a provincial one.

There's also a new urgency. Trade tensions with the United States have made it plain that B.C. and Canada have to become more competitive and open new markets. Building our own automation capacity isn't only an economic question anymore. It's a question of resilience.

Today, a B.C. operator who knows they need automation has no obvious place to start. A local robotics company has no reliable path to a local buyer. Universities train people without a clear line to the employers hiring them. And nobody publishes what these projects actually return, so every owner is making a six-figure decision blind. The Canadian Robotics Council named the fix plainly in 2024: the most urgent need is to incentivize robot adoption among SMEs.

So we're building two connected things.

The BC Robotics Cluster is the destination — a self-sustaining ecosystem that takes B.C. from roughly 30 to 100-plus robotics companies over the next decade.

ARM for BC — Automation & Robotics Mobilization for BC — is the engine that ignites it: a three-year, $6M public-private program, split 50% industry and 50% government, that helps B.C.'s small and medium-sized businesses actually adopt robotics. ARM is the fundable first step. The Cluster is what it builds toward.

ARM will be delivered by Circle Innovation, a proven B.C. not-for-profit, with BCIT and SFU behind it and over 50 ecosystem partners involved. Circle is leading the PacifiCan application. That matters: this isn't a concept in search of a home. It has a credible operator and a field-tested method — Circle's SWAT model, which has already helped bring more than 100 products to market across B.C.'s tech sectors.

ARM meets SMEs where they are: qualifying the real automation challenge, designing the project, assembling a team spanning the BCIT Centre for Robotics and Automation, academia and government, co-funding the pilot with workforce training attached, then publishing the ROI so the next forty companies aren't guessing.

Everyone has something in this. By 2029, the targets are 40 robotics SMEs supported, 400 new B.C. jobs, 1,000-plus trained professionals, $50M in investment attracted, 25% sector revenue growth and 40% export intensity. Industry and large buyers get productivity, safety and labour-shortage relief from suppliers fifteen minutes away rather than an ocean away. Academia gets a funded, industry-connected talent pipeline. Government gets measurable GDP, high-paying jobs and tax growth. Investors get early access to B.C.'s scaling robotics champions.

Denmark proved the path. Odense grew from a single donation of roughly $10M into a global powerhouse — 145-plus companies and about CAD $1.5B invested. It took 46 years. With B.C.'s deeper foundations and ARM as the catalyst, we should be able to do it in ten.

Every year we don't act, the adoption gap compounds. Our best robotics companies find their growth customers — and eventually their headquarters — elsewhere. Our graduates follow them. Our SMEs defer the capital project until a competitor who didn't defer takes the contract. Ontario, Quebec and Alberta are organizing. So is everyone else.

PacifiCan's Regional Innovation Ecosystems window closes October 30, 2026.

If you run a B.C. company that could back this, a letter of support with a financial commitment strengthens the application directly. If you're a large buyer, commit to one adoption pilot. If you're an SME, tell us your hardest bottleneck. If you're in academia, government or investment, lend your name.

Eighteen months of groundwork, 42 leaders at the table, a credible delivery partner and a closing window. Let's not spend another decade building robots for everyone else.