Artificial intelligence will change the world as we know it
And you might not know it, but Canada is quietly attracting the world’s tech giants northwards. Canada’s AI boom is being led by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Huawei. Better still they are spending huge capital on research hubs in Quebec, Ontario, and Alberta.
The country is attracting top-notch talent as well.
Leading the Canadian charge is the Toronto-Waterloo corridor also known as Silicon Valley North. Between 2012 and 2017, Toronto saw the creation of 82,100 tech jobs — surpassing California’s Silicon Valley by 4,270 jobs.
Here are 4 Toronto-based AI rising stars
Alayacare offers a cloud-based software platform for home healthcare practitioners. The platform features clinical documentation, back-office functionality, patient and family portals, remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and mobile care worker apps.
Tenstorrent is a provider of cloud and AI-based deep learning processing units. It has developed high-performance processor ASICs, engineered specifically for deep learning and artificial intelligence.
Ada is a provider of an AI chatbot for customer experience. It provides a no-code chatbot platform that automates the customer engagement process. The cloud-based messaging platform features analytics, API & authentication, and conditional logic capabilities. It has use cases in travel, e-commerce, fintech, telecom, retail, banking, and insurance applications, among others.
Ecobee creates smart thermostats for commercial and residential applications.
There’s no doubt Toronto certainly deserves its place at number one. But wait one second the rest of the country is quickly gaining ground. Cities such as Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Ottawa are well on their way to becoming major hubs of AI innovation.
Behold the Marvel of Montreal’s AI Progress
To be fair, Montreal is not really a newcomer to AI development and innovation. In fact, the city has been a backbone in the industry since the early days of Yoshua Bengio, who is considered one of the pioneers of neural networks and deep learning in the 1980s.
In 2017 Element.AI of Montreal received a series A funding round that raised $137 million, the largest in history for an AI startup.
Two other AI companies that call Montreal home are:
Hopper and AI-enabled price prediction solutions for travel services.
Coveo which offers knowledge management solutions using an enterprise cognitive search technology. Customers include L’Oreal, Lockheed Martin, Bombardier, CAE, YUM! Brands, GEICO, and SunGard.
When You Think Edmonton – Think Google
In 2017, Google’s AI company DeepMind opened its first international office in Edmonton in collaboration with the University of Alberta. The company plans to contribute academically through teaching and research as well as support AI programs in the University, which is considered an AI world leader.
Want another? The Royal Bank of Canada has gained more interest in AI research with Borealis.AI. This is a world-class AI research center that seek to address some of the biggest challenges in financial services today. Such as:
- Enhancing risk applications
- Reducing fraud
- Helping customers better manage and predict their cash flow, access credit and plan for their financial futures
Let’s Not Forget Vancouver and Ottawa
Vancouver’s AI ecosystem is on fire. Their startup landscape has exploded over the last decade and Vancouver has one of the best startup ecosystems for a city of its size.
Here 4 amazing Vancouver-tech companies:
Innergex – a developer, owner and operator of run-of-river hydroelectric facilities, wind energy, and solar farms in North America.
Ostara – helps protect precious natural resources by transforming how nutrients are managed from source to field.
Hootsuite – Social media dashboard takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Unbounce – The #1 landing page & AI copywriting platform for 70,000+ customers
D-Wave – the only quantum computing company that builds and delivers quantum systems, cloud services, application development tools, and professional services to support the end-to-end quantum journey.
Finally, there’s Interset, an Ottawa-based company which uses AI to address cybersecurity issues. Other Ottawa examples include Zighra, Stratelogics, and BluWave-ai. More and more AI startups are sure to see Ottawa’s potential.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is unleashing a tidal wave of wealth that will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
In order to assess the true AI power and potential of Canada, it’s important to start shedding light on other cities apart from Toronto which are on their way up. We can expect to see these cities grow and become international players in the global AI race.