The Pan-Canadian AI Strategy is delivering significant social and economic impact for Canada, with tremendous growth in our AI sector.
Driven by our world-leading talent, Canada’s AI startup ecosystem has grown exponentially since 2017, with strong venture capital investment.
Through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR, Canada has established a strong national AI ecosystem of talent and partnerships. This is truly the time for Canada to lead the world in the responsible development and use of this transformative technology.
Current Impact Statistics (at November 2024)
Impact & Opportunities: Canada’s National AI Ecosystem (Deloitte)
CIFAR Impact Report
About the AI Strategy
Strengthening Canada’s leadership in responsible AI
The Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR drives cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of diverse AI leaders and fosters cross-sectoral collaboration for innovation, commercialization and responsible AI adoption.
Canada’s strong AI ecosystem
CIFAR works closely with Canada’s three National AI Institutes, which are the central hubs of their respective AI ecosystems. Our researchers, companies and innovators come together to advance responsible AI research and its application to areas that can benefit society and drive economic growth.
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In the world for net migration of people with AI skills (2019–2022).1
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In the world on the Global AI Index 2024 (measuring AI investment, innovation and implementation).2
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Number of actively engaged AI professionals in Canada in 2022–23, an estimated 29% increase over the previous year.3
References
1 OECD.AI (2024), visualization powered by JSI, using data from OpenAlex, accessed on 25/7/2024, oecd.ai
2 tortoisemedia.com/intelligence/global-ai
3 Impact and opportunities: Canada's AI ecosystem — 2023. (Deloitte Canada)
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In the world on a per-capita basis for the number of AI research papers published in Canada.1
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Number of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows currently being trained at Canada’s three National AI Institutes.
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Year in which CIFAR researchers Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun were awarded the A.C.M. AM Turing Award, the “Nobel Prize of Computing” for the development of deep learning.2
References
1 OECD.AI (2024), visualization powered by JSI, using data from OpenAlex, accessed on 25/7/2024, oecd.ai
2 OECD.AI Policy Observatory, “AI scientific publications time series by country, from Scopus” (accessed May 31, 2023)
Canada CIFAR AI Chairs
The Canada CIFAR AI Chairs program is the cornerstone of the CIFAR Pan-Canadian AI Strategy. Based at Canada’s three National AI Institutes (Amii in Edmonton, Mila in Montreal, and the Vector Institute in Toronto), these world-leading researchers advance AI science in a range of fundamental and applied AI topics from natural language processing to drug discovery and machine learning for health, to autonomous vehicles, materials discovery, human-AI interaction, and more.
AI Science
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI Science
Jeff Clune, Vector Institute: AI that learns to improve itself
October 09, 2023
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI Science
Adam Oberman, Mila: Leveraging math to address AI reliability
October 09, 2023
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI Science
Martha White, Amii: Tuning AI for real-world use
October 06, 2023AI for Health
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI for Health
Ross Mitchell, Amii: AI note-taking for doctors
November 16, 2024
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI for Health
Russell Greiner, Amii: AI that makes precision medicine more precise
October 09, 2023
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI for Health
Parvin Mousavi, Vector Institute: Unlocking AI-powered approaches to cancer treatment and detection
October 09, 2023
AI for Energy & the Environment
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI for Energy and the Environment
Graham Taylor, Vector Institute: Using AI to track insect biodiversity loss in real time
November 29, 2024
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI for Energy and the Environment
Marlos C. Machado, Amii: Using AI to make technology smarter and cleaner
October 10, 2023
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - AI for Energy and the Environment
David Rolnick, Mila: Protecting the world’s biodiversity with AI
October 09, 2023
Responsible AI
Canada CIFAR AI Chair - Responsible AI
Reihaneh Rabbany, Mila: Detecting misinformation online
January 31, 2025
AI Safety
Foutse Khomh, Mila: Making the world’s AI safer
October 09, 2023
AI Safety
Sheila McIlraith, Vector Institute: Building safe AI for the generations to come
October 09, 2023
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Average growth in Canada’s cohort of AI talent each year since 2018, outpacing the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy.1
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Canada’s ranking among OECD countries for the proportion of workers with AI skills (2017–2022).2
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Early-career AI scientists trained through the CIFAR Deep Learning + Reinforcement Learning Summer School, one of the world's foremost international training programs for machine learning, since 2005.
References
1 OECD.AI Policy Observatory, AI talent concentration by country (accessed May 31, 2023)
2 OECD.AI (2024), visualisations powered by JSI using data from LinkedIn, accessed on 29/7/2024, oecd.ai
Testimonial
“We’re thrilled to have three of Amii's frontier-leading Canada CIFAR AI Chairs showcasing their work in one of the world's most beautiful places. Amii will also help us apply AI and machine learning to our destination analytics and tourism forecasting, which will drive Jasper forward into the future.”
James Jackson
President & CEO, Tourism Jasper
Spotlight on
CIFAR DLRL Summer School: Showcasing Canada for the world’s brightest next-gen AI talent
Prestigious summer training program inspires next-gen global talent with leading edge, responsible AI and Canada as the place to build their careers.
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Canada’s world ranking in the year-over-year percentage growth of women working in AI since 2019, including 67% in 2022-23 alone.1
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Number of training programs at CIFAR and the AI Institutes that are focused on advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in AI.
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Number of CIFAR events and activities to advance responsible AI since 2017.
References
1 OECD.AI Policy Observatory, AI talent concentration by country and gender (accessed May 31, 2023)
Testimonial
“The Mila ecosystem and startup program enabled us to interact with and learn from other AI startups who are further along while also having access to its rich research community. Given the depth and breadth of the AI talent at Mila, it makes sense for Mila to create and foster an environment that allows researchers to transition into innovators. The success of the first edition of the Entrepreneurship Lab is a testament to this.”
Charles C. Onu
Mila PhD Student & Founder and AI Research Lead, Ubenwa
Spotlight on
Canada’s foundational role in generative AI
Canada’s strong competitiveness in the generative AI field has its roots in longstanding Canadian support of responsible AI research.
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In the world for # of AI startups behind only the US, China, UK & Israel.1
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Venture capital investment into Canadian AI startups in 2023, representing nearly a quarter of all Canadian VC that year.2
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Growth in the number of AI patents filed nationally (2022–23), with 248 new patents. This puts Canada in the number two spot among G7 nations in annual percentage rise in patents.3
References
1 visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-number-of-ai-startups-bycountry/
2 crunchbase.com/hub/canada-artificial-intelligence-companies (extracted July 17, 2024)
3 Impact and opportunities: Canada's AI ecosystem - 2023. (Deloitte Canada)
Testimonial
“We were stuck with a major problem, and we needed a reliable solution. Our collaboration with Vector has completely shaped our approach to the next steps in regulatory, branding, and product as a diagnostic tool.”
Azar Azad
Co-founder and CEO, A.I. Vali
Spotlight on
National AI Institutes propel responsible AI commercialization across Canada
CIFAR and Canada’s three National AI Institutes support existing and emerging Canadian AI companies to grow beyond experiments and pilots to successful commercialization.
