It's time to make the Canadian AI ecosystem bloom

Over the past few months, industry and government have pledged more than $500-million toward AI, a commitment that has led to the rise of powerful institutions such as the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, the Vector Institute and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. These structures are well positioned to keep churning out cutting-edge research, train the next generation of AI leaders, and advance the innovation and technology transfer of AI. Our three AI Institutes are set up to offer Canadian businesses similar training programs and there's good reason for them to use these resources: Canadian enterprises that consider investing in state-of-the-art machine-learning and data infrastructure can enjoy results such as increased efficiency in manufacturing, better management of underwriting risk, minimization of fraud and reduction of health-care costs. Among the most urgent are ensuring the market is well supplied by streamlining immigration, ensuring higher education and industrial research-funding programs are well capitalized and targeted, modifying tax policies to encourage entrepreneurship and streamlining research and development tax credits to support AI investments.