Welcome to the monthly Ask AI news roundup where we highlight the latest innovations, investments, and breakthroughs in the Canadian artificial intelligence sector. Stay up-to-date by subscribing to our podcast and monthly newsletter and following us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Interested in getting involved at the Ask AI nonprofit as a volunteer? We're looking for a Community Manager and Guest Posters for our blog.
ENVIRONMENT & CLEANTECH
TEAM CHECK-IN: Check out the Ask AI Team Check-In with the Digital Innovation in Clean Energy (DICE) team at Alberta Innovates
VANCOUVER - Carl Data Solutions, who use predictive analytics for compliance-driven Environmental Monitoring as a Service ("EMaaS") and Smart City applications has announced the pre-launch of three new environmental monitoring products. According to CEO Jean Charles Phaneuf; "They are supplemented with intellectual property developed during Carl Data Solutions' two-year engagement leading the Fresh Water Data Commons project for Canada's Digital Technology Supercluster," Full story
MONTREAL - A new report produced by the Centre for AI & Climate outlines the potential for artificial intelligence to power climate action and strategy. David Rolnick, Canada CIFAR AI Chair and a Co-founder and Chair of Climate Change AI stated; "There are many ways that AI can be a powerful tool in enabling and accelerating climate action, from monitoring carbon stock using satellite imagery, to optimizing heating and cooling in buildings, forecasting crop yield, and helping design next-generation batteries" Full story
SOCIAL & GOVERNANCE
OTTAWA - Ottawa-based NuEnergy.ai says its Machine Trust Platform software will be at the centre of a pilot project with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). “The new Machine Trust Platform is a Canadian tech breakthrough that gives organizations configurable one-stop access to qualified, globally-sourced AI governance measurements and assessments,” said Niraj Bhargava, co-founder and CEO and a graduate of the University of Waterloo’s systems design engineering program. Full story
CANADA - According to a federal minister, Canada only wants to deal with “trusted partners” in future artificial intelligence ventures – a signal that the country’s rejection of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a 5G provider is at hand. Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne offered the assessment in a recent interview. Full story
LONDON - Whether scrolling Facebook or calling an Uber or searching for jobs, how does artificial intelligence affect the daily lives of Western students? That’s a question third-year philosophy student Nathalie DiBerardino explored this past summer, working with Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) professor Luke Stark as part of an interdisciplinary development initiative exploring the social impacts of AI in Canada and around the world. Full story.
AGRICULTURE & NATURAL RESOURCES
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Canada's Silver Cobalt Works Inc. has engaged GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. to apply their proprietary machine learning technology and geoscience expertise to the Castle East project located in Gowganda Ontario. Said GoldSpot CEO Vincent Dubé-Bourgeois: “Canada Silver Cobalt has some of the best silver intercepts in recent history and we are very excited to be a part of that,” Full story
MANITOBA - Federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development Minister Ralph Eichler have announced thir governments are investing $2.2 million in three agricultural research projects to be conducted by Topigs Norsvin Canada that will enhance the competitiveness of Manitoba pork producers by improving the precision feeding and promoting higher animal welfare standards. Full story
HEALTHCARE & PHARMA
INTERVIEW: Check out the Ask AI interview with Lawrence Richer, Vice-Dean, Clinical Research University of Alberta.
ALBERTA - Under the supervision of Michael Frishkopf, professor in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Arts, and nursing professor Elisavet Papathanasoglou, doctoral student Shaista Meghani is conducting research on using sound therapy to treat patients who leave intensive care with post-traumatic stress disorder. Based on machine learning, the “smart” sound system would read physiological feedback such as heart rate, breathing and sweat gland response to customize calming sounds for individual patients. Full story
TORONTO - TD Bank Group has donated a $1-million to establish the Augmented Precision Medicine Lab at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. The Augmented Precision Medicine Lab will develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems to help improve the clinical care that patients receive in the fields of cardiology, cancer and other chronic diseases. According to Dr. Alexander Bilbily, a physician and computer scientist at Sunnybrook who will serve as the director of the new lab; "AI in medicine will undoubtedly improve the quality of care that patients receive, and, perhaps more importantly, it will improve health-care equity by dramatically widening access to underserved communities and populations" Full story
CANADA - Innovative Medicines Canada and Roche Canada have announced a $50,000 Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence and Population Health for the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) at the University of Toronto. "This grant will enable our School to continue improving our impact on public health and health systems in Canada and around the globe.” said Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, Professor and Dean at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Full story
CALGARY - New Canadian houses found to have much higher radon gas levels than those in Sweden. The UCalgary research correlates radon levels to increased lung cancer rates. According to Dr. Aaron Goodarzi, PhD, the Canada Research Chair for Radiation Exposure Disease and an associate professor in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, "Considering the 10- to-30-year latency period for lung cancer — the time between exposure and the detection of cancer — one plausible explanation for the disparity between Canadian and Swedish lung cancer incidence is differences in exposure to residential radon." Full story
TORONTO - TeleVU, a Canadian tech company focused on application of smart glasses in healthcare settings utilizing the power of Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence has that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with TELUS, the Canadian telecommunications company. Ryan De'Larami, TeleVU's Founder & CEO, stated; "We are delighted to pair our technology with TELUS's vast experience and expertise in the field of virtual care and 5G to improve the way healthcare is delivered to Canadians, and bring care closer to home" Full story
BUSINESS
INTERVIEW: Check out the Ask AI interview with Manal Siddiqui, CEO, and Pietro Gagliano, CVO, at Transitional Forms, the Toronto-based agency that's creating immersive content for the Metaverse.
TORONTO - Cohere, a provider of natural language processing (NLP) services, and Google Cloud have announced a multi-year partnership in which Google Cloud’s advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning infrastructure will power Cohere’s platform. Cohere’s co-founder and CEO, Aidan Gomez stated: "We are bringing cutting-edge NLP technology to every developer and every organization through a powerful platform." Full story
VANCOUVER - Blender Bites, a company that develops and markets frozen organic and plant-based pre-portioned smoothie products has announced that the company has signed a distribution agreement with Vejii, the e-commerce platform incorporates machine learning, artificial intelligence, to provide an enhanced shopping experience. Full story
TORONTO - Predictiv AI Inc. has announced the termination of its joint venture by transferring its 51% interest in SMRT Labs Inc. to its partner, Commersive Solutions Inc. The termination agreement released Predictiv AI from all current and future obligations and liabilities related to the joint venture. Full story
TORONTO - One of the top global names in private capital has joined Toronto’s Radical Ventures as the financier of artificial intelligence startups gears up to raise its second fund. John Megrue Jr. was previously co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, and before that chairman and CEO of private-equity giant Apax Partners US. Mr. Megrue has joined Radical as vice-chairman and partner after advising the firm for more than a year. Full story
TORONTO - Altus Group says it has an agreement to expand its data offerings and client base by acquiring U.S.-based Scryver Inc., the company behind the AI-powered Reonomy platform, for C$249.5 million. “When the opportunity with Reonomy emerged we wanted to move quickly as high-quality assets like theirs are rare in our space and the strategic fit was spot-on,” said Mike Gordon, CEO. Full story
TORONTO - Xanadu AI has partnered with Agnostiq to build products on top of Xanadu's open-source software, PennyLane, to solve and address financial problems using advanced computing technologies. PennyLane provides a powerful and pioneering differentiable programming approach to quantum computing. It seamlessly integrates classical machine learning libraries with quantum hardware and simulators, giving users the power to train quantum computers the same way as neural networks. Full story.
PUBLIC SECTOR / PPP
OTTAWA - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are seeking a solution to access encrypted data for investigation purposes. The force is facing challenges in accessing encrypted data seized during the course of criminal investigations and is looking for an artificial intelligence decryption system that can process the seized data files and generate specific word lists to try and access the encrypted material. Small businesses will have until December 16 to apply to the challenge. Full story
MONTREAL - Mila, the Quebec AI Institute, has unveiled its first impact report reflecting its impressive growth and the many direct and indirect benefits recorded since 2018 in the context of the flourishing Quebec AI ecosystem. Full story
MONTREAL - Concordia University and Ericsson Canada have teamed up to integrate and enhance applied AI research and development. University experts will help Ericsson employees further expand artificial intelligence and machine learning knowledge with project-based applied learning. According to Tristan Glatard, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering and Canada Research Chair in Big Data Infrastructures for Neuroinformatics: "Through this training, Ericsson and Concordia are bringing AI out of the lab and into the real world.” Full story
STAY UP-TO-DATE
Keep up with Canada's fast-moving AI sector by subscribing to our podcast and monthly newsletter and following Ask AI on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Did we miss something? Please feel to add it in the comments and we'll update the post. Has your team recently achieved a milestone? Please feel free to request a Team Check-In. 😀
Commentaires