Conference & Meetings World Supplements Canada AI Supplement | Page 7
Canada
Montréal is the No.1
university research
hub in Canada
• 1st in the country for university research funding
• 11 university institutions
• Over 200,000 students
• Most university researchers in Canada
• Two universities (of Canada’s six) ranking in
the Times Higher Education World University
Rankings 2018 - McGill University and Université de
Montréal.
Added to the above are 91,000 qualifi ed
workers in ICT across 5,000 facilities and almost
9,000 university students in AI and data related
programs.
Deep Learning Ground Zero
Montréal is home to its own
Deep Learning expertise thanks
to Université de Montréal’s
professor Yoshua Bengio who
heads the Montréal Institute for
Learning Algorithms (MILA).
MILA is also known as ‘Deep
Learning Ground Zero’, the place
where Deep Learning was born.
MILA also offers world-class
capabilities in AI key expertise:
Computer Vision, Automatic
Speech Recognition, Natural
Language Processing and
Reinforcement Learning.
The Université de Montréal
and McGill University have over
250 researchers and doctoral
students in fi elds related to AI, the
largest academic concentration
in the world.
Other Montréal fi elds of
expertise include data science
and medical imagery. And, it is
not just theoretical: Facebook,
DeepMind and Thales all
announced the opening of AI
labs in Montréal in 2017.
Google has invested in an AI
focused research lab, ‘Google
Brain’ headed by Deep Learning
specialist Hugo Larochelle,
while Microsoft Ventures' fi rst
investment was in Element AI.
“Microsoft is excited to engage
with faculties, students and the
broader tech community in
Montréal, which is becoming a
global hub for AI research and
innovation,” Brad Smith, president
of Microsoft, has said.
IBM has plans to open its own
AI-development lab in Montréal,
working directly with MILA and
Samsung’s AI lab at Université de
Montréal. They have direct links
with Seoul National University.
Montréal also took 24% of the
$900m Canada First Research
Excellence Fund in 2016,
$93.5m of which was awarded
to AI research through IVADO
(Institute for Data Valorisation),
which also raised C$110m from
the private sector.
Another key reason to invest in
AI in Montréal is the fact that the
region boasts the most bilingual
population in Canada.
Medical applications
Another area of expertise is
using advanced algorithms
to better interpret medical
images. Professor Ismail Ben
Ayed, Ecole de Technologie
Superieure (ÉTS) research chair
on AI and medical imaging,
has perfected a software
program that is able to evaluate
the ejection fraction of the
heart and an algorithm that
automatically annotates the
bones of the spinal column.
These programs are now used in
hospitals.
Professor Ben Ayed is also
hoping to create algorithms that
can detect what is invisible to
the naked eye, and thus predict
diseases.
Finally, in terms of general
MICE appeal, Montréal is
dynamic and cosmopolitan;
a centuries-old island city with
a dual personality, where old-
world charms meet high tech
innovation, and French meets
English.
Its intelligence and appeal is
both natural and 'artifi cial'.
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