Canada
Toronto and the Godfather of AI
The world can learn deep lessons from Ontario’ s AI investment that has made it an innovation capital
The three major hubs of Montréal, Edmonton and Toronto in Canada have essentially split the AI role into three main components, each with their own fi eld of complex research. Toronto ' s focus has been on Deep Learning and its academic and commercial achievements have propelled it into the front rank of AI innovation. In the past year, the Toronto Region claims to have added more tech jobs to its ecosystem than New York City and San Francisco Bay Area combined. The University of Toronto ranks 10th in the QS World University Rankings list for 2017 for best computer science schools and the city’ s Vector Institute, an independent, non-profi t research institution dedicated to AI, is excelling in both Deep Learning and Machine Learning with corporate partners including Google, Shopify, Accenture, Thomson Reuters, Uber, Air Canada, and all fi ve major Canadian banks. Under the guidance of chief scientifi c advisor, professor Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called‘ Godfather of AI’, the Vector Institute trains and
attracts researchers who want to lead the world in Machine Learning and Deep Learning research. They also have the fl exibility to work on commercial applications with companies or in their own startups. The researchers coming to Vector have contributed to the number of scientists working in the Toronto Region growing by 44 % since 2006, a rate that is nearly three times the rate of overall employment growth. The Ontario government has also commited to increasing the number of post-secondary STEM graduates by 25 % over the next fi ve years to 50,000, making the province the top producer of STEM graduates in North America. Recent AI investments in the city include: Uber: The company set up a new research hub in Toronto in 2017 to focus on developing AI for driverless vehicles. The move was Uber’ s fi rst R & D operation outside of the United States. Thomson Reuters: In 2016 the international media company opened its Toronto Technology
Centre to house its cognitive computing activities. The decision was driven by the region’ s technology strengths in data visualisation and AI. OpenText: This fl exible AI platform was set up in 2017 and combines open source Machine Learning with advanced analysis to acquire, manage and analyse big data. General Motors. The automotive giant has committed to growing its engineering workforce in the Toronto Region to 1,000 and will focus on autonomous vehicle software. The University of Toronto boasts several entrepreneurship hubs on campus, including the Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab( DCSIL) and the Creative Destruction Lab( CDL), an AI innovation‘ hothouse’ at the Rotman School of Management. JLabs, a part of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, has spearheaded the AI for Drug Discovery QuickFire Challenge, a project highlight rising stars who use AI to advance drug discovery and development in various medical areas.
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