Ottawa and Quebec team up with $15-million investment to advance responsible AI development

The federal and Quebec governments are joining forces to advance the responsible development of artificial intelligence, within a new global partnership and with a new international centre of AI expertise.

Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and Nadine Girault, Quebec’s Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie, announced the governments of Canada and Quebec have signed a memorandum of understanding under the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), which officially launched on June 15. GPAI has 15 founding member-states, including Canada and France.

Bains and Girault also announced the opening of the new Montreal-based International Centre of Expertise for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (ICEMAI), which will support GPAI’s activities.

In March 2018, the Quebec government announced a $5-million grant to support the creation of an international AI organization in Montreal or to attract one to the city. The federal government had previously committed up to $10 million over five years to support the Montreal Centre of Expertise and the GPAI – making for a total investment of $15 million over five years.

“This builds on our government’s Pan-Canadian AI strategy to advance AI research and promote collaboration,” Bains said in a statement. “Our partnership with Quebec in this area will help us ensure that AI benefits Canadians in an equitable and socially responsible way.”

GPAI will support the development and use of AI based on principles of inclusion, diversity, innovation, human rights and economic growth, while seeking to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

“By connecting the work of GPAI with the technological innovations of Montreal’s AI sector, and by establishing partnerships with the provinces and territories, we will produce useful research and expertise for governments around the world,” Bains said.

Girault said that Quebec, particularly the Montreal metropolitan area, is world-renowned for a growing AI research and innovation ecosystem. This ecosystem has received more than $900 million in foreign investment since 2007 and benefited from nearly $1 billion in public funds, both from federal and Quebec initiatives. This includes $40 million from the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, led by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and $230 million for the Scale AI supercluster headquartered in Montreal.

The MOU between the governments of Quebec and Canada sets out Quebec’s role and active participation within GPAI, “and demonstrates Quebec’s indisputable leadership in the responsible development of AI,” Girault said.

Partnership will focus on four AI themes

GPAI will facilitate international and multistakeholder collaboration by bringing together experts from industry, civil society, governments, and academia. It will conduct activities across four themes, including two supported by the new Montreal Centre of Expertise: Responsible AI; and Data Governance.

A corresponding Centre of Excellence in Paris will support the other two themes: Future of Work; and Innovation & Commercialization. GPAI will also investigate how AI can be leveraged to respond to and recover from COVID-19.

Several Canadian experts will contribute to the cutting-edge research and activities of GPAI’s working groups on these themes, including Yoshua Bengio, professor at the Université de Montréal and founder and scientific director of the Montreal-based Mila research institute in artificial intelligence, who will co-chair the Working Group on Responsible AI.

ICEMAI, whose creation is being led by Montreal International, will play a key role in GPAI, along with the Paris centre.

The two centres will work closely with the GPAI Secretariat, which will be hosted at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. ICEMAI also will plan the first annual GPAI Multistakeholders Experts Group Plenary, to be held in Montreal in December 2020.

ICEMAI will work with the federal Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, Forum IA Québec, and the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies, as well as with experts from Quebec, Canada, and around the world to strengthen innovation and the commercialization of AI technologies.

Canada’s thriving AI ecosystem includes more than 850 startup companies, 20 public research labs, 75 incubators and accelerators, and 60 groups of investors from across the country, grouped in major hubs such as Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Edmonton, and Vancouver.

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