We have been talking about AI a lot on the BetaKit Podcast lately. And for good reason: it’s very compelling! Very exciting! Very scary!
Much like mobile and the cloud did in years past, it has the potential to impact every industry. So how are Canadian businesses addressing that? What is our capacity for AI adoption? What does an AI-powered economy look like?
“The goal here is not that Canada is the largest market for AI in the world—it’s never going to be that. But if we make it the most willing to try new solutions, or to work with startups, that’s where we might have an opportunity.”
It turns out that Canada has a global innovation cluster working on that: Scale AI. It used to be a Supercluster (RIP), but despite the prefix demotion is still regularly committing millions of dollars to fund AI initiatives.
Scale AI also just released a research report it calls a Canadian AI portrait, pointing to our country’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to AI, and offering a bit of a reality check on what can and cannot be achieved. The frankness of the assessment matches the tone of Scale AI’s chief operating officer, Clément Bourgogne, who joins us on the podcast this week.
The episode is longer than most, but it’s worth digging into how Canada can best commercialize AI, our current limitations and opportunities, and why Scale AI is focused on supply chains and not generative AI.
So how can Canada build an AI-powered economy? Let’s dig in.
Osler, the leading law firm for startups, high-growth companies and investors in Canada, has released its second annual study of 353 anonymized Canadian venture capital and growth equity financings. Read the Deal Points Report: Venture Capital Financings.
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The BetaKit Podcast is hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Edited by Kattie Laur. Feature image courtesy Scale AI. Sponsored by Osler.