Finland knows it doesn't have the resources to compete with China or the United States for artificial intelligence supremacy, so it's trying to outsmart them. "People are comparing this to electricity – it touches every single sector of human life," says Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa. From its foundations as a pulp mill 153 years ago, Nokia is now one of the companies helping to drive a very quiet, very Finnish AI revolution. Last May, the small Scandinavian country announced the launch of Elements of AI, a first-of-its-kind online course that forms part of an ambitious plan to turn Finland into an AI powerhouse. To date, more than 130,000 people have completed the course.

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to capture the imagination and interest of entrepreneurs, investors, big business, and consumers alike. Across sectors and industries, innovators are developing and implementing AI – enabled technologies that streamline processes, improve operational efficiency, and aim to identify actionable solutions to complex problems. As AI technology continues to advance in sophistication; systems, machines, and processes designed to effectively analyze data, provide insights, and make decisions will become commonplace in our world. Whether it is the automation of tasks previously relegated to you and your colleagues at work, the software and hardware that increases your vehicle's safety and will one day power self-driving vehicles, or the algorithms guiding how products are marketed to you, chances are AI is already having a major impact on your day-to-day life. Over the next few years and coming decades, global entrepreneurs will continue to develop the Artificial Intelligence applications that will transform our future.

Yoshua Bengio is one of the foremost thinkers in a field within artificial intelligence known as artifical neural networks and deep learning. Although significant progress has been made in recent years due to (among other factors) the combination of the proliferation of data, the decreasing cost of compute, and the tremendous amount of money and talent now devoted to artificial intelligence, Bengio chose this as a field of study during the 1980s, in the throes of what some referred to as the AI winter, seeing through a period when money and enthusiasm for artificial intelligence had dried up. Bengio is the co-author (with Ian Goodfellow and Aaron Courville) of Deep Learning, a book that Elon Musk referred to as "the definitive textbook on deep learning." On top of his growing influence in this field, he has also been enormously influential in shaping Montreal to become a hotbed for artificial intelligence. Bengio co-founded Element AI in 2016, which has a stated mission to "turn the world's leading AI research into transformative business applications."

Yoshua Bengio is one of the foremost thinkers in a field within artificial intelligence known as artifical neural networks and deep learning. Although significant progress has been made in recent years due to (among other factors) the combination of the proliferation of data, the decreasing cost of compute, and the tremendous amount of money and talent now devoted to artificial intelligence, Bengio chose this as a field of study during the 1980s, in the throes of what some referred to as the AI winter, seeing through a period when money and enthusiasm for artificial intelligence had dried up. Bengio is the co-author (with Ian Goodfellow and Aaron Courville) of Deep Learning, a book that Elon Musk referred to as "the definitive textbook on deep learning." On top of his growing influence in this field, he has also been enormously influential in shaping Montreal specifically and Canada more generally has become a hotbed for artificial intelligence. Bengio co-founded Element AI in 2016, which has a stated mission to "turn the world's leading AI research into transformative business applications."

In 2011, Apple became the first company to place artificial intelligence in the pockets of millions of consumers when the firm's co-founder Steve Jobs launched the voice assistant Siri on the iPhone. Eight years later, the technology giant is struggling to find its voice in AI. Analysts say the question of whether Apple can succeed in building great artificial intelligence products is as fundamental to the company's next decade as the iPhone was to its previous one. But the tech giant faces a formidable dilemma because the nature of artificial intelligence pushes Apple far out of its comfort zone in sleekly-designed hardware and services. AI programming demands a level of data collection and mining that is at odds with Apple's rigorous approach to privacy, as well as its positioning as a company that doesn't profile consumers.

When you hear the term "artificial intelligence," you may think of tech giants Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, or Facebook. Industrial powerhouse General Electric is now aiming to be included on that short list. It may not have a chipper digital assistant like Cortana or Alexa. It won't sort through selfies, but it will look through X-rays. It won't recommend movies, but it will suggest how to care for a diesel locomotive.

When you hear the term "artificial intelligence," you may think of tech giants Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, or Facebook. Industrial powerhouse General Electric is now aiming to be included on that short list. It may not have a chipper digital assistant like Cortana or Alexa. It won't sort through selfies, but it will look through X-rays. It won't recommend movies, but it will suggest how to care for a diesel locomotive.