Recommended Reading: Canada bet big on a national AI strategy

Five years ago, Canada launched the world’s first national AI strategy, setting aside $125 million over five years to further the country’s position as a world-leading destination for AI research and investment. Today, the strategy has attracted and retained 109 AI researchers as Canada CIFAR AI Chairs, advanced research across a range of fundamental and applied AI topics and drawn investment from local and international companies alike.

In a recent article published in The Logic, Murad Hemmadi asks the question: “Canada bet big on a national AI strategy. Is it paying off?” He dives deep into the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, interviewing leaders such as Amii’s Richard S. Sutton (Chief Scientific Advisor) and Cam Linke (CEO), Garth Gibson of the Vector Institute, CIFAR’s Elissa Strome and Foteini Agrafioti of Borealis AI.

In the article, Hemmadi explains: “As the first incarnation of the program comes to an end, research and business executives say it’s helped deepen Canada’s talent pool and maintain its place as an AI destination. The Liberal government is now set to spend hundreds of millions more to extend and expand the strategy, and other deep technology sectors like quantum are lobbying for the same kind of backing. But some stakeholders warn that Canada risks squandering its opportunity if it doesn’t focus its support on helping companies find commercial uses for AI inventions, and stem the loss of talent and intellectual property to foreign firms.”

Sutton highlights how the strategy, through Amii, has recruited or retained 35 faculty-level AI researchers over the last five years at institutions like the University of Alberta: “It doesn’t change the research problems–they’re just as hard … but it makes the whole activity more exciting, enlivens it, and increases the size of it.”

He also calls the strategy an effective use of funding and a positive for the AI ecosystem in Canada and Alberta: “we are a leading place in the whole world where AI ideas, applications and companies are happening.”

“This is all part of the tax base,” says Sutton in the article. “Canada’s got an amazing deal out of the whole thing.”

Likewise, Linke notes that AI researchers, including Canada’s leading experts Geoffrey Hinton, Sutton and Yoshua Bengio, are providing benefits beyond their own research: “They’re all still training students … maybe a small percentage will end up going to work at their respective companies. The rest are going to go and join or start a different company, here in town.”

Check out Hemmadi’s piece in The Logic (also available in the Financial Post) to hear more from Amii and other experts in Canada’s AI community.

You can also discover how Amii is creating the future of AI right here in Alberta in our 2021-22 Impact Report.