Canada is globally acclaimed for its expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), prominently ranked among the top nations for AI research and application. This is even clearer following Geoffrey Hinton's 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics and Yoshua Bengio's inclusion in Time Magazine's 2024 TIME100/AI List. These accolades not only celebrate individual achievements, but also highlight the country's profound impact on global technological innovation. 

The country's longstanding investments in AI infrastructure and education have fostered a rich ecosystem that excels in innovation. In 2023 alone, Canadian AI startups attracted $1.6 billion in venture capital, demonstrating the vibrant economic activity spurred by AI technologies. In fact, Canadian AI researchers produced more AI publications per capita in 2022 than any other G7 nation.

Beyond celebrating prestigious accolades, Canada channels its AI prowess into strategic national initiatives designed to sustain and expand its global leadership

A Visionary Approach: The Pan-Canadian AI Strategy

Canada's proactive approach to artificial intelligence through its Pan-Canadian AI Strategy sets a global standard for AI development and deployment. This first-of-its-kind national strategy underpins Canada’s commitment to maintaining a competitive edge in a fast-evolving global AI landscape. With more than $2 billion invested since 2017 and an additional $2.4 billion allocated in 2024, Canada is accelerating innovation across its AI ecosystem, ensuring these advancements drive economic growth and societal wellbeing. These investments are aimed at building advanced computing infrastructures, enhancing AI literacy and fostering an inclusive approach to technology development. 

Integral to the success of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), alongside the national AI institutes—Vector Institute in Toronto, Mila in Montréal and Amii in Edmonton—, play pivotal roles in translating Canada's AI ambitions into global leadership. 

CIFAR: Orchestrating Canada's AI Research Network

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), based in Toronto, has been key to fostering international networks of AI research. By funding and coordinating global collaborative research, CIFAR has driven significant advances in AI technologies and methodologies.  In 2017, the Canadian government appointed CIFAR to develop and lead the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy. With an initial investment of $125 million, CIFAR has been instrumental in reinforcing national and regional AI ecosystems, aimed at catalyzing economic and social growth across Canada.

CIFAR’s Key Strategic Priorities in AI:

1. Advancing AI Science - Advancing research in a range of fundamental and applied AI topics including drug discovery and machine learning for health, autonomous vehicles, materials discovery, human-AI interaction, natural language processing, and more.
    
2. AI for Health - By leveraging our strengths in AI and health research, our publicly funded health systems, and the diversity of our population, Canada is well positioned to deliver world-leading AI-based health innovations that will improve both our health systems and the health of Canadians, with the potential to benefit the world.
    
3. AI for Energy and the Environment - Accelerating solutions that mitigate the effects of climate change, protect the environment, and deliver innovation in the energy sector.
    
4. AI for Commercialization - New programs are underway at our partner AI Institutes to support and stimulate Canadian companies, enabling the development and scaling of AI technologies in a way that is inclusive, responsible and beneficial.

The Canada CIFAR AI (CCAI) Chairs Program helps Canada retain and recruit top academic researchers, allowing them the freedom to carry out research, train students, and interact with industry. The CCAI Chairs Program supports the recruitment and training of young researchers, including both graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. It includes funding for graduate students who will work with the CCAI Chairs, as well as training for students at the three AI Institutes.

Vector: Merging Theoretical AI with Real-World Applications

Located in Toronto, the Vector Institute stands as a bridge between theoretical AI research and practical applications, with a strong focus on unlocking new ways to apply AI to drive better economic, health and societal outcomes. The institute was co-founded by Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI" and recent 2024 Nobel Prize winner. Hinton serves as Vector’s Chief Scientific Advisor, providing meaningful contributions to its renowned research community, who are advancing breakthroughs in the science and application of AI. From using quantum computing to address climate change and developing new machine learning models for 3D applications, to harnessing AI to improve food price forecasting and more, Vector researchers are unlocking new ways to apply AI to drive better economic, health, and societal outcomes.

The Vector Institute’s Strategic Research Priorities:

• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• AI for Science
• Trustworthy AI
• AI for Health
• Foundation Models

Notable Initiatives:

Empowering Youth Mental Health Service Frontline Staff with AI: This initiative harnesses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to enhance the capabilities of frontline staff at Kids Help Phone, Canada’s 24/7 national service offering confidential support to young people. The partnership, pivotal in using Canada's largest youth mental health dataset, innovates in the ethical application of AI to make mental health support more accessible and precise. The AI tools analyze patterns in help-seeking behaviour and sentiment, ensuring frontline staff can offer targeted assistance based on a nuanced understanding of speech patterns, ultimately aiming to make a significant impact in addressing the youth mental health crisis.

Decoding Nature’s Mysteries One Bug at a Time: BugShot is an AI-driven program developed by Vector that revolutionizes how insects are studied and cataloged. Using machine learning algorithms, the BugShot project can identify more than 1,000 bug species from a single photo—a task that would take human experts months. This technology not only aids in biodiversity preservation, but also enhances our understanding of ecological balances—just one example how Canadian innovation is providing leadership in global biodiversity research and conservation efforts.

Unveiling Alzheimer’s: How Speech and AI Can Help Detect Disease: In collaboration with health care researchers, Vector has developed a groundbreaking AI-based speech analysis tool that can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. This tool analyzes speech patterns and identifies subtle changes that may indicate cognitive decline, offering a non-invasive, early detection method. This innovation has the potential to transform Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment, providing crucial benefits to patients and health care systems alike. This tool underscores Canada’s role in visionary health care solutions that can have a global impact.

Mila: Fostering Ethical AI and Global Partnerships

Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio in Montréal, Québec, is renowned as the world's largest academic research centre focused on deep learning and a major source of AI innovation. Situated at the nexus of a unique collaboration among leading academic institutions like l’Université de Montréal, McGill University, and others, Mila excels in modelling language, machine translation, object recognition and generative models. It distinguishes itself through a commitment to ethical AI, an Open Science policy and significant contributions to health, environmental sustainability and climate change.

As part of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, Mila leverages its more than 1,400-strong community to produce groundbreaking research and foster industry collaborations, ensuring its advancements in AI technology not only lead in innovation, but also benefit society globally.

In 2022/2023 alone, there were more than 600 research projects involving Mila-affiliated faculty members and their work was published in close to 300 scientific publications.

Mila’s Strategic Research Priorities:

• AI and Health - Advancing AI in health care, researchers contribute to drug discovery, medical imaging and neurosciences, developing responsible tools that promise a healthier future.
   
• Responsible AI - Central to the mission, this research addresses the risks and ethical concerns of AI, striving to create safer, fairer and more trustworthy algorithms.
   
• Environment and Energy - Tackling climate change, research focuses on carbon capture, meteorological modelling and sustainable solutions, leveraging AI to promote environmental resilience.
   
• AI4Science - Addressing challenges in scientific research, AI is used to process vast data sets, enhancing efforts in areas like antimicrobial resistance and climate science, speeding up discovery processes.
   
• Language and Image - Leading in natural language processing and computer vision, researchers refine the integration of these technologies and improve the robustness of large language models.
   
• Robotics - Enhancing robotics applications in diverse industries, efforts focus on improving real-world usage, environmental modelling and instructional methodologies for robots.

Notable Initiatives:

• AMPLIFY: A groundbreaking collaboration between Mila and Amgen, AMPLIFY (Amgen-Mila Protein Language model for InFerence and discoverY) is an open-source protein language model that democratizes access to cutting-edge AI for protein research. This model significantly reduces the financial and technical barriers typically associated with drug discovery, offering a scalable and efficient solution that accelerates therapeutic development across the globe, making it a powerful tool for global health advancement.
   
• AI and Cities: UN-Habitat and Mila White Paper: In partnership with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Mila launched a collaborative White Paper offering insights and recommendations on how AI systems could be harnessed to support the development of socially and environmentally sustainable cities and human settlements. It provides actionable insights and frameworks that can guide global urban development, addressing the unique challenges of social equity and environmental sustainability through AI applications, and setting a new standard for smart city initiatives globally.
   
• The First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) Initiative: FLAIR represents a groundbreaking approach to cultural preservation through technology, deploying AI to safeguard and revitalize Indigenous languages at risk of being lost. This initiative uniquely integrates language technology with data sovereignty principles to create tailored speech recognition models, facilitating cultural engagement and transmission on a global scale, and enabling Indigenous communities worldwide to navigate and contribute to digital spaces in their native languages.

Amii: From Research to Industry Transformation

The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), based in Edmonton, Alberta, is the westernmost of the three national AI institutes in Canada. Established with the ambition to transform innovations into practical applications, Amii fosters a collaborative environment between academia and industry to advance intelligent systems and decision-making processes. Amii's specialization in reinforcement learning and optimization techniques drives major advances in energy, agriculture and health care, translating cutting-edge AI research into scalable solutions that address real-world challenges.

Amii’s research areas of impact include:

• Reinforcement Learning - Machine learning that enables AI systems to learn to achieve goals through experience.
   
• Precision Health - An AI application space, this area assists health care providers through individually tailored diagnosis, prognosis and treatment planning for physical and mental health.
   
• Natural Language Processing - At the intersection of computing science and linguistics, this research area aims to understand and improve how systems process and analyze human language.
   
• Games and Game Theory - This research focuses on understanding and optimizing strategic interactions between individuals within an environment. It includes human interactions as well as game playing AI.
   
• Deep Learning - With applications such as computer vision, translation and classification systems, this branch of machine learning relies on a network of nodes for distributed information processing.
   
• Privacy, Bias and Explainability - Focusing on security, fairness and interpretability, researchers in this area work to improve AI systems and their interactions with humans and human systems.

Notable Initiatives:

Principled AI Strategy: Amii developed and published the "Principled AI at Amii" framework, setting a benchmark for the ethical development and deployment of AI technologies. The initiative includes new educational workshops, such as AI Ethics – Governance and AI Ethics – Deployment, developed in partnership with the Digital Governance Council. These courses aim to equip professionals with the tools to implement ethical AI solutions, fostering responsible AI practices that are critical in today’s technology landscape.
 

Rapid Innovation and Research: Amii continues to be a powerhouse in AI research, with significant investments such as a $30M initiative to create new interdisciplinary research positions. The achievements of Amii Fellows and their contributions to AI advancements highlight the institute’s role in pushing the boundaries of AI research and application, maintaining its position at the forefront of global AI innovation.
 

AI Literacy for the K-12 Classroom: Recognizing the essential role of AI understanding in modern education, Amii has significant educational outreach, reaching 30,983 participants through its courses last year. Notable programs include the AI Everywhere course, offered to all undergraduate students at the University of Alberta, and a pilot program for K-12 educators. These initiatives are designed to prepare current and future generations to effectively engage with and harness AI technologies.

Canada’s proactive approach in fostering AI talent and innovation through institutions like CIFAR, Vector, Mila and Amii has cemented its status as a global leader in the AI revolution. Hosting an AI-related business event, such as a conference or summit, in AI hubs like Montréal, Toronto or Edmonton offers a unique opportunity for C-suite executives to engage directly with some of the world's foremost AI thought leaders and institutions. This proximity not only enhances the relevance and depth of the agenda, but also elevates the overall participant experience by facilitating direct access to cutting-edge research and practical insights.