Tabletop boxes will soon be pumping out microchips at lightning speed from a desk near you. Multibillion-dollar foundries will be replaced and the face of manufacturing will be forever altered.

To digest this, some may have to suspend their disbelief.

But for visionaries such as Douglas Mulhull, author of Our Molecular Future, a version of the above scenario is already happening.

Mulhull was in Ottawa last month to talk about nanotechnology at a speaking event hosted by the local branch of the Canadian Information Processing Society.

Mulhull observed that microchips are already being printed "on a board in a box", thanks to the adaptation of bubble-jet printing to the production of three-dimensional objects that actually work. Such "boxes" are already manufacturing some types of programmable chips, surgical models and car parts, said Mulhull, who urges us to imagine the disruptive influence of replacing a $4-billion factory with boxes that sit on a tabletop and cost anywhere from $75,000 to $750,000. Add to that the replacement of silicon with diamond derivatives, which run 100 times faster at a tenth of the heat, said Mulhull.

Imagine indeed.

Suppose advances in nanotechnology are so impressive and cost-effective they one day permit Ottawa semiconductor firms to do away with the old order of outsourcing the manufacture of microprocessors to the Far East. Suddenly, long distance relationships with foundries in Taiwan would be a thing of the past. Young Ottawa companies would no longer have to search in earnest for a partner in China and confront language barriers, among other logistical challenges. More established semiconductor companies would not have to worry about factory snags on the other side of the world that might slow production and siphon profits. Instead, these companies could produce everything right here.

Powerful stuff.

But others argue that, for now, this scenario is the stuff of dreams and may not register on the collective radar for another few decades.

According to Neil Gordon, president and co-founder of the Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance, the businessperson might say, "At what cost? Does anyone really need it? And, if so, what do we have to sacrifice in order to get that?"

"This is something that's not in the short-term horizon of business," he concluded.

However, Gordon is not ruling out Mulhull's vision altogether. But, for nanotech to be fully embraced, it will need to reach a stage where people are prepared to "do something revolutionary and risk the whole value chain that has been established for 20 years", he said.

A more immediate concern, said Gordon, is the action, or relative inaction, of Canada on the nanotech front. There are now seven countries that commit a US$100-million annual investment to nanotechnology and Canada isn't one of them, he said.

"It's going to be increasingly difficult to compete against these resources."

Similarly, Mulhull declared that nanotech research is breaking out all over the planet, pointing to hotbeds such as South Korea, India and China.

"These are the countries we're going to be competing against," he said, adding it's not a case of Western countries introducing nanotech to "poor developing countries". In fact, Canada might be behind Asian powerhouses in the nanotech space and will have a difficult time catching up, he suggested.

It appears the National Research Council's answer to this challenge has been the National Institute for Nanotechnology. Established in Edmonton in 2001, the institute boasts one of the world's most technologically advanced research facilities.

Another caveat to consider is the effect nanotechnology might have on Canadian jobs in the manufacturing and natural resources sectors. Suppose automobiles need less steel because of better nanotech-derived coatings and composites that make products lighter and last longer, said Gordon.

"If auto manufacturers are buying less components and parts become a lot simpler, cars become more sophisticated and last longer, you'll have less need to build things with labour-intensive work."

As with any move to automation, there will be job loss, said Mulhull. The real challenge will be to redirect those jobs to the manufacture or design of those devices that are responsible for the automation, he said.