NextAI Announces Founding Partners and Initial Commitment of $5M to Build Canada's AI Ecosystem

TORONTO, January 25, 2017 - Today NextAI announced major partnerships with several leading Canadian companies to help fund and support the program and its participants. NextAI is a global innovation program for artificial intelligence-related ventures, and talented teams from around the world are invited to Canada to leverage the nation's leadership in AI and are provided with capital, mentorship, education and networking opportunities. The concept for NextAI was born out of an innovation brainstorming session sponsored by RBC and Magna during the summer of 2016, and joining RBC and Magna as founding corporate partners are BDC Capital and Scotiabank. To date, the funding provided by all corporate partners totals $5.15 million. NextAI has also formed technology partnerships with IBM Canada, Google and NVIDIA, who have committed millions in hardware, access to technology, and services.