The institute begins with commitments of $130 million, about half the money coming from the national
and provincial governments and the other half from corporate sponsors like Google, Accenture and Nvidia, as well as big Canadian companies like the Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and Air Canada.
Ideas Into Dollars -
By STEVE LOHRAPRIL 9, 2017
TORONTO — Long before Google started working on cars
that drive themselves and Amazon was creating home appliances that talk, a handful of researchers in Canada — backed by the Canadian government and universities — were laying the groundwork for today’s boom in artificial intelligence.
“Canada is not really reaping the benefits from this A. I.
technical leadership and decades of investment by the Canadian government,” said Tiff Macklem, former senior deputy
governor of the Bank of Canada, who is dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
In recent years, many of Canada’s young A. I.
Canada is producing a growing number of A. I start-ups,
but they often head to California, where venture capital, business skills and optimism are abundant.
The experience of two start-ups applying A. I.
technology to drug discovery illustrate the challenges — and the opportunities — facing Canadian start-ups.