Google goes north to Montreal's artificial intelligence scene

Notman House is a local ICT mecca in Montreal. Google's $3.4 million investment in the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) and new lab opening in The City of Saints not only highlights the company's banking on artificial intelligence, but its faith in Canada's ICT industries to help it in that quest. Montreal is running neck and neck with Toronto and Vancouver to attract talent and incubate businesses. Though Ontario holds a lead over it, Montreal remains, "the second most popular location for most types of ICT jobs" after Toronto according to the Canadian Information and Communications Technology Council, and over 222,000 people are employed across various industries, from gaming to AI R&D. The lab will be led by University of Montreal and Twitter alumnus Hugo Larochelle, whose like-minded associates at MILA are already heavily invested in deep learning applications.