Big names want to join Montreal's tech scene, but Canada should nurture local talent, says AI pioneer

Some of the biggest names in tech are lining up to join Montreal's burgeoning artificial intelligence cluster, but harnessing the sector's full potential depends on creating homegrown tech champions, not just celebrating investments by large multinationals, warns one of Canada's godfathers of deep learning. Canada is at the centre of research charting new ways to mine big data with implications for everything from better medical diagnoses to self-driving cars and Montreal is emerging as a hub thanks to a large concentration of available researchers in a low-cost city with great social values. Facebook became the latest Silicon Valley giant to set up shop in the city with a Sept. 15 announcement that it would open a research lab and invest $7 million in Montreal's AI community, joining Google, Microsoft and Samsung, which all have a presence in the city. More deals are likely on the way, according to Yoshua Bengio, considered one of the pioneers of deep learning -- an AI subset that uses neural networks to mimic the way a human brain learns and adapts. Bengio, who heads the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, one of Canada's three main AI centres of excellence, recently partnered with Samsung to open a University of Montreal lab that will focus on developing algorithms for use in voice and visual recognition, robotics, autonomous driving and translations.