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Sub-sector spotlight: Artificial Intelligence

Canada is at the cutting edge of R&D

Montréal’s Element AI, Toronto’s Vector Institute and Edmonton’s Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute are magnets for the world’s top talent.

Canadian Pioneers:

  • Toronto: Deep learning led by Geoffrey Hinton
  • Montréal: Machine learning led by Yoshua Bengio
  • Edmonton: Reinforcement learning led by Richard Sutton

Success Stories:

Montréal is home to SCALE AI, Canada’s AI supply chain supercluster and the International Centre of Expertise in Montréal for the Advancement of AI. 
Source: www.montrealinternational.com 

Edmonton is a core member of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy thanks to expertise from the University of Alberta and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii).

Calgary’s White Whale is a data technology company building AI analytics solutions that empowers businesses to make sound, data-driven decisions. Its flagship solution, DeepSea, is used in several industries including energy, health and wellness, aviation, defence and professional sports.

Montréal startups Hexoskin and Hykso have made a name for themselves in biometric clothing and wearable technology. Many Olympic boxers and professional MMA fighters are getting real-time data via Hykso punch trackers. During the Rio 2016 Olympics, various athletes sported Hexoskin Smart Shirt tech wearables. 

In Toronto, researchers with Uber Technologies Advanced Technologies Group Research and Development Centre are conducting research in autonomous technology alongside some of the top universities of Canada. 

The Waterloo Region is ranked #2 in Canada for AI research and is home to Canada’s largest robotics and automation cluster and 150 research centres, including the largest concentration of math and computer science talent in the world. 
Source: Waterloo fact sheet provided by destination