Mapping the Canadian AI Ecosystem

If we sum up all the available numbers for AI research investments (including other government funding like the $93.5M awarded to IVADO by the Canada Research Excellence Fund last September, as well as private funds invested in public or semi-public labs) we end up with close to $500M in funding across the country. Beyond that, when we look up other domains that work hand in hand with AI, such as Big Data, cloud infrastructure and the like, that number grows even higher. What made Silicon Valley's talent pump work up to now was its ecosystem of large firms and venture capital feeding startups, as well as research who in turn generate the innovations to push the large firms forward. With investments from the federal and provincial governments in research, as well as from Big Tech, the Canadian talent pump is growing quickly.