Bonjour Startup Montréal has unveiled a map that aims to visually represent the city’s artificial intelligence (AI) innovation ecosystem.
The map, which Bonjour Startup Montréal put together in collaboration with Next AI, IVADO, and Montréal International, provides an overview of the organizations that make up Montréal’s AI ecosystem.
The map’s list of Montréal startups to watch includes My Intelligent Machines, Deeplite, and Heyday AI.
Bonjour Startup Montréal called the map another tool in its toolbox to help entrepreneurs, support organizations, and decision-makers “better understand Montréal’s startup ecosystem.” Last June, the nonprofit launched Startup Radar, a digital tool designed to help users track the city’s startup ecosystem.
The map groups entities into eight categories: funding sources, ecosystem support organizations, events with a focus on AI, corporate labs, AI-focused accelerators and incubators, hubs and coworking environments, academic organizations, and 25 startups to watch.
The map’s list of Montréal startups to watch include My Intelligent Machines (MIMs), Deeplite, and Heyday AI, which all recently raised new capital. Both MIMs, which operates at the intersection of healthcare and AI, and neural network-focused software startup Deeplite announced seed rounds earlier this month. Last month, Heyday AI, which offers a conversational AI platform for retailers, raised a $6.5 million CAD seed extension.
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Founded in 2019, Bonjour Startup Montréal aims to accelerate the creation, growth, and public exposure of Montréal startups. In October, the organization announced its first board of directors.
Montréal-based AI institute Mila, which was listed under the map’s academic section, recently announced a new partnership with Intel focused on developing and applying AI practices to medical research. Stéphane Létourneau, Mila’s executive VP, called the development “a great opportunity to democratize AI” and accelerate the development of the open-source solution the institute is currently developing.
For their first collaborative project, the organizations are teaming up to research new AI-based methods for search in the drug space. They aim to use large-scale computing to speed up the “search and discovery of synthesizable molecules with much better binding energies to target protein,” in order to “bring us faster and closer to urgently need cures.”
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To accomplish this, Mila and Intel Labs plan to scale machine learning algorithms on large-scale computing infrastructure.
According to Intel, the partnership will involve more future collaborative research and development projects. Intel also plans to support Mila’s talent attraction and retention efforts by participating in its internship programs and job fairs.
Mila is also collaborating with IBM on an open-source AI and machine learning project, and in November, the AI institute received a $3.9 million CAD grant from Google.
Photo by Matthias Mullie via Unsplash