“We’re in a moment in Canada.”
That’s the message Evan Solomon took away from his recent appearance at Platform Calgary on Wednesday, where he took to the stage for a conversation on the future of AI in Canada.
“We have to make sure everyone benefits from this technology, not just a bunch of tech bros.”
The federal AI and digital innovation minister told BetaKit he was blown away by the number of people at the event, from a wide spectrum of life experiences, who were “all-in on trying to re-invent stuff, solve problems, create companies, build, find investment.”
Around 200 founders, funders, and entrepreneurs from Alberta’s tech sector packed into the downtown event centre to hear from Solomon, who is leading the government’s effort to update Canada’s AI strategy.
As part of that process, Solomon commissioned a public consultation and AI Taskforce at the end of last year to provide a “roadmap” for updating the strategy. The government released the initial findings of those efforts in February, to some criticism, and the updated plan is expected to be unveiled as early as next month.
Meanwhile, the federal government has had to handle some thorny questions around AI, privacy, and public safety. The most high-profile incident came after AI giant OpenAI revealed that the alleged perpetrator of the Tumbler Ridge shooting had been flagged and banned from its large language model ChatGPT months before the shooting, but that the company did not inform Canadian police. In the wake of those revelations, Solomon met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to push the company to adopt new safety standards.
The federal government’s updated AI strategy will be based on four main pillars, and Solomon told the crowd at Platform Calgary that it will have an emphasis on sovereignty and making sure “AI is for all.”
“We have to make sure everyone benefits from this technology, not just a bunch of tech bros,” he said. “Everybody: north, south, east, west.”
Solomon says he doesn’t care what someone’s background or political affiliation is, only that their ideas have merit.
“The distance between idea and execution has never been shorter, this is why Platform is here,” he said. “You come here, you should have access to the tools to succeed, build and grow based on the merit of your idea. If your idea sucks, you’re going to fail: welcome to being an entrepreneur. If your idea is good, you’re going to get rich: welcome to the rewards for capital.”
When the oringinal national AI strategy was launched in 2017, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) was established in Edmonton, one of three national institutes and centres of excellence. Since then, however, Calgary has been the centre of growth for Alberta’s tech sector, with the city being named the fastest-growing in North America for tech talent.
“Edmonton is more research-driven and Calgary is more entrepreneurial-driven and the application of that research,” said Platform Calgary CEO Jen Lussier.
“It’s about ensuring that the builders, whether they’re in either city, or other regions, are able to access the same resources, the same investment pool, the same mentors and coaches. That’s literally what we do with Edmonton right now, we’re creating that corridor.”
The other two national institutes are the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (Mila), and the Vector Institute in Toronto.
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The aim of sovereignty and keeping Canadian startups in Canada is an important one, said Ferdinand Hingerl, CTO at Ambyint, which supports upstream oil and gas companies through its AI-powered production optimization platform.
“One of the things that concerns me a lot about our strategy in general in Canada is that we lose a lot of IP, we lose a lot of talent to our southern neighbours,” he said.
Ambyint started in the U.S. and then came to Canada, which is the opposite of how things usually play out, said Hingerl.
“We have investors here, we have customers here, and we have talent here,” he said. “However, once you outgrow the startup phase and you get into scale-up, additional growth capital becomes a challenge in Canada. How can we grow our next unicorn here, not just a unicorn, but generally create a larger base of strong international acting corporations that are built here and stay here?”
Along with the Calgary talk, Solomon also spent three days in Banff at the first-ever National Summit on AI and Culture. He also spent time earlier in the day on Wednesday at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), which has a growing drone lab.
Platform Calgary is a non-profit organization and innovation hub aimed at connecting entrepreneurs with resources, funding, mentors, and programs to launch and scale startups.
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Images courtesy Dave Dormer for BetaKit.