The federal government will refresh its national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy one year ahead of schedule, Canada’s AI minister said at the ALL IN conference in Montréal on Wednesday morning.
“Government is a powerful validator and a powerful customer, and it can create markets for Canadian-made AI solutions.”
AI Minister Evan Solomon
Evan Solomon said that Canada is putting together an AI strategy task force made up of “innovative thinkers from across the country.” The task force has 30 days to add to a collective consultation process in areas including research, talent, commercialization, safety, education, infrastructure, and security.
The group will report back to Solomon in November, fuelling the federal government’s refreshed national AI strategy, which the AI minister pledged would be tabled this year.
“This is going to be our roadmap,” Solomon said. “It was supposed to be [tabled] at the end of next year; [we] can’t afford to wait.”
Canada had been iterating on its AI strategy for several years under the former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, beginning in 2017 with a $125 million commitment. The strategy evolved with further funding for Canada’s AI institutes and innovation clusters in 2022, before the government pledged $2.4 billion in the 2024 budget to support compute and bring new AI tech to market.
Solomon set up today’s announcement by reiterating how important AI and data are to Canadian sovereignty. He said the country cannot be a “branch plant” or a “farm team” for other economies, which are turns of phrase he has previously used.
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Solomon said his priorities include addressing Canadian entrepreneurs’ concerns about access to capital, customers, and compute. On the capital front, the government will roll out new tools to help Canadian innovators scale at seed and early-stage funding rounds at home. Solomon added that the government is leading by example through its memorandum of understanding with Canadian AI firm Cohere.
“Government is a powerful validator and a powerful customer, and it can create markets for Canadian-made AI solutions,” Solomon said.
The minister’s other priorities include building consumer trust in AI, modernizing Canada’s data privacy laws, and ensuring key sensitive data is controlled under Canadian law in Canadian-controlled data centres.
Sovereign data has become a talking point as Canada’s relationship with the United States (US) changes. The CLOUD Act allows it to compel any US-based company to provide electronic data to its authorities, no matter where it is stored globally. Key sensitive data for Canadians includes health data, financial data, and personal data, Solomon added, elaborating that there will be three models for digital sovereignty: highly secure, hybrid, and publicly available.
Solomon told the press following his announcement that Canadians are concerned about the CLOUD Act, and that digital sovereignty involves data being “free from coercion.”
“There are genuine solutions to [the issue] that we are currently working on with incredible Canadian companies on sovereign AI, built here, located here with Canadian hardware,” Solomon said.
During his remarks, Solomon pointed out that Prime Minister Mark Carney included digital infrastructure as an inaugural priority for the Major Projects Office. The minister also teased an upcoming “major quantum initiative to help the sector keep its talent and intellectual property in Canada.
With files from Madison McLauchlan.
Feature image courtesy Madison McLauchlan for BetaKit.