When Canada’s long-delayed AI strategy is released next week, it will help the government make different choices around procurement, support, and providing capital to build up the industry, the federal AI minister’s parliamentary secretary told attendees at a Toronto AI conference on Thursday.
The news: On Monday, at Betakit’s Most Ambitious: Town Hall, AI minister Evan Solomon told attendees that the federal AI strategy will be coming soon. On Wednesday, we learned what soon means when Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in Ottawa that the strategy will go live next week.
From the source: “Canada’s renewed AI strategy…will do things differently,” Solomon’s parliamentary secretary, Taleeb Noormohamed, said in an introductory speech at All In Talks Toronto on Thursday, during Toronto Tech Week. He said that Canadians have long watched “industrial-scale intellectual property and long-term value migrate elsewhere, but that “our job is to make sure that stops.”
He added, speaking directly to the crowd, that “if you’re an investor in this room and you’re hesitating [to buy into Canadian AI] because it’s Canadian: don’t.”
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Following the thread: Noormohamed’s comments preceded a panel where leaders from companies like AMD, Hypertec, Bell, and Snowflake somewhat sidestepped the panel’s theme of infrastructure access and instead spoke broadly about their desire to help Canadian AI companies commercialize and grow. Bell’s John Watson shared his excitement for what the federal strategy might enable. Mike Marracino, with Hypertec, said that while Canada could “lead the world” when it comes to AI, it will also need to keep an open mind as it will need to acquire some components for the industry (like GPUs) from elsewhere.
Final thought: Canada’s federal AI strategy was originally slated to be released before the end of last year. Government consultations show that Canadians are concerned about ensuring the strategy both addresses ethical governance concerns and spurs economic growth. While he didn’t address the former during his remarks, Noormohamed made it clear the upcoming strategy will focus on the latter.
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Feature image courtesy Sarah Rieger for BetaKit.