Canada moves to regain AI leadership mantle

Other nations can learn much from Canada when it comes to artificial intelligence advances. For one thing, “the focus and nurturing of AI needs ongoing attention and investments; otherwise, that leadership in AI can be lost,” an industry analyst said Wednesday.

Bill Wong, research fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, was responding to the recent appointment of MP Evan Solomon, a former journalist, as Canada’s first Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation in the federal cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In the past, he said, “Canada has been viewed as an AI leader around the world with respect to AI research, especially with thought leaders like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Richard Sutton.”

However, he noted, “despite the recognition, critics would cite that [it] has fallen behind and challenged when it comes to monetizing  AI investments. As part of the government’s election platform, the government promised to move fast on building data centers, introduce a tax credit to incentivize AI adoption by small and medium-sized businesses, and push to expand programs at Canada’s artificial intelligence institutes to drive AI commercialization.”

In a commentary on the appointment, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a policy think tank based in Ottawa, Ontario, stated that it “signals a consolidation of federal focus on a field that has historically been spread across numerous portfolios … Solomon’s challenge will be to distinguish between productivity enhancing AI and ‘so-so’ automation — harnessing the benefits of AI, while ensuring adequate regulation to mitigate associated risks.”

AI is a ‘geopolitical force’

Canada, the organization stated, “must close the gap between AI innovation and adoption by pursuing policies that encourage productivity-boosting AI — applications that augment workers and make them more efficient, rather than simply replace them. The answer is a multi-level policy framework that accelerates the uptake of AI in ways that enhance output, job quality, and workforce participation.”

Wong noted, “Canada was the first country to deliver its national AI strategy; the appointment of the country’s first AI minister can be viewed as a natural evolution of Canada’s adoption of AI at a national level.”

The appointment of Solomon, he said, “demonstrates just how important AI is to the future of Canada and its people. While AI is considered a technology disruptor, its impact is far-reaching, and it will impact every industry and the national economy.”

And while having a government ministry of AI is not the norm for most countries today, he said, “the importance of this role to the country’s economy and national security is growing. Internationally, AI has become a geopolitical force; an example of this would be the US imposing export controls on high-end AI chip technology to China.”

The upcoming  G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, from June 15 to 17,  said Wong, “provides an opportunity for Canada to demonstrate its AI leadership on an international stage. While it’s a short runway to that event, Canada should promote its best practices for deploying AI in the public sector, its plans to democratize the benefits of AI to its people, and demonstrate its thought leadership by sharing research and data.”

The Carney government, he said, also has a “mandate to improve its use of AI to improve productivity as well as increase the adoption of AI by private industry. A recent Deloitte study cited that only 26% of Canadian organizations have implemented AI, compared with 34% globally.”

AI compute fabric in the works

In the private sector, Bell Canada on Wednesday announced Bell AI Fabric, an investment, it said, “that will create the country’s largest AI compute project.”

The telco plans to create a national network that will start with a “data center supercluster in British Columbia that will aim to provide upwards of 500 MW of hydro-electric powered AI compute capacity across six facilities.”

The first facility, a release stated, will come online this month in partnership with AI chip provider Groq, with additional facilities being operational by the end of 2026, including two at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, BC.

Bell said that the data centers at TRU “will be designed to host AI training and inference, providing students and faculty with access to cutting-edge compute capabilities, both at TRU and nationally through integration with the BCNET network. The data centre is also being integrated into the district energy system, with waste heat being repurposed to provide energy to TRU’s buildings.”

Further reading:

AI and economic pressures reshape tech jobs amid layoffs

Microsoft cements its AI lead with one hosting service to rule them all

Real-world use cases for agentic AI

AI vs. copyright

How to train an AI-enabled workforce — and why you need to

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