Samsung’s advanced research and development arm, Samsung Research, is opening three new AI research centres worldwide.
One of them is based in Toronto. Samsung Research is looking to strengthen the company’s AI capabilities by expanding its global AI research.
The lab in Toronto — which will be housed in the MaRS Discovery District — is part of a new wave of centres spread across the globe. Samsung is also opening locations in Moscow, Russia and Cambridge, UK.
These three new labs will join the already existing AI research locations in Seoul, South Korea, and in the San Francisco Bay Area in the US, giving Samsung a total of five AI centres worldwide.
“Toronto and the GTA are epi-centres of machine learning and one of the world’s foremost hubs for AI research and development. Home to not only world-class talent, but also some of the most innovative start-ups in the artificial intelligence field,” said Dr. Larry Heck, co-head of Global Artificial Intelligence Research at Samsung. “We are looking forward to contributing to this vibrant AI community and to help push the field forward as we move towards our goal of making all Samsung connected devices intelligent by 2020.”
Across all of these centres, Samsung hopes to employ around a 1,000 AI researchers within the next two years.
The Canadian lab will be run by Dr. Sven Dickinson, who was previously a chair of the department of computer science at the University of Toronto. According to Samsung, Dickinson is an expert in computer vision and will play an integral role in the company’s AI research.
Samsung said in a recent press release that one of the key factors to placing this centre in Toronto is the city’s closeness to key AI talent at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo.
This article was originally published on MobileSyrup.