How Canada has emerged as a leader in artificial intelligence University Affairs

Governments can have a pretty dismal track record when it comes to predicting the next big thing. Tax dollars spent on visionary projects are often, it seems, tax dollars thrown away. But, this past spring, Ottawa might have made its best bet yet with the $125 million it has set aside over the next five years for a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy. That money will go to three academic centres: the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA), the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII) in Edmonton, and the new Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, based in Toronto. In return, the three organizations are to hire more scientists, do more research, train more students and – the important bit – nourish a growing ecosystem that will provide Canadian jobs, products and services based on artificial intelligence, or AI.