Canada aims to strengthen its AI independence by investing heavily in its domestic IT capabilities. The government plans to work closely with local AI companies on this initiative.
THE The Canadian government unveiled its strategy to build its AI IT infrastructure. According to officials at the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry, the government will invest $2 billion in technical infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence.
The plan focuses on three key investments. Up to $700 million will be spent on building new data centers. Another billion dollars is earmarked for public supercomputer infrastructure. The remaining $300 million will help small and medium-sized businesses access computing power.
“The strategy we are announcing today is a major step toward ensuring Canada’s place as a global leader in AI,” said François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. .
Announcement
The new investment program will be fully launched in spring 2025. The government says it will prioritize projects that promise strong returns on public investment and meet sustainability standards.
AI startup Cohere lined up for data center project
Cohere, a Canadian AI start-up could benefit from this investment surge. In a recent message to investors and staff, CEO Aidan Gomez highlighted the importance of personalized AI solutions for businessestouching on plateau that LLMs seem to have reached recently:
“Several years after the development of LLMs, there is a very small group of players, including Cohere, producing leading AI models. With each passing year, models continue to improve and offer capabilities beyond what almost anyone could have predicted five years ago. That said, the performance of these models on general use cases and benchmark tests is increasingly similar and our customers are rightly focused on their own use cases and evaluations.
Gomez wrote that scaling generic language models is not enough. Instead, Cohere focuses on highly specialized AI systems that prioritize security and adaptability. The company works with Oracle and Fujitsu on custom AI solutions.
Government data shows that Canada employs more than 140,000 AI specialists and is home to 10% of the world’s leading AI researchers. The Canadian AI sector attracted over $8.6 billion in venture capital in 2022, representing 30% of total venture capital investment.
The participation of women in AI particularly stands out: with growth of 67% in 2022-2023, Canada leads the world in this area. The country also filed AI patents in numbers almost three times the G7 average, an increase of 57%.