The federal government will spend $2.4 billion to strengthen access to critical artificial intelligence infrastructure, build domestic computing capacity and create safeguards against the potential downsides of AI technology, said Justin. Prime Minister Trudeau made the announcement Sunday.
The announcement was the latest in a near-daily series of pre-budget announcements in which the government has revealed its spending plans ahead of the release of the full federal budget on April 16.
Canada is home to some of the world’s leading AI researchers, but in recent years it has fallen behind in providing the infrastructure needed for the growing field, particularly the advanced computer chips essential to building and running AI models. This change has led many to call for further government intervention.
Prime Minister Trudeau provided few details in his announcement at a news conference in Montreal, but many industry insiders praised the promised investments. Others said his experience with past government spending announcements had made them skeptical of Ottawa’s ability to follow through on new commitments.
Funding to build and make more computing power accessible will account for the most significant portion of new spending.
The $2 billion will be shared between two new initiatives, the government said in a news release. One of them, the AI Compute Access Fund, aims to provide “short-term support” to industry and researchers. The government did not provide further details, but one way this support could be provided is by Access to computing power from foreign technology giants. Another initiative, the Canada AI Sovereign Computing Strategy, aims to accelerate the development of Canadian-owned and installed AI infrastructure.
“Access to computing power and funding are the two biggest barriers to developing new AI models and applications,” Trudeau said.
The government did not say how much of the $2 billion would be used for access and how much would be used to build domestic computing capacity.
Treasury officials told the Globe and Mail that the money will be spent over five years, with details to be announced in next week’s budget. The Globe is not naming the officials because they were not authorized to discuss detailed spending plans.
Trudeau’s AI spending announcement comes after more than a week of other funding announcements totaling tens of billions of dollars in new federal loans and spending in areas such as child care and housing. It remains unclear how the new spending will affect federal revenues until the budget is released next week.
Last year’s budget projected a $35 billion federal deficit in 2024-25, without taking into account any new spending announced so far. Trudeau was asked at a news conference about government spending and Conservative Leader Pierre Poièvre’s call for the government to find $1 in cuts for every $1 in new spending.
“We are investing responsibly,” Trudeau said, adding in French: “A confident country invests in itself and invests in its people. That’s exactly what we’re doing today.” Ta.
The government news release also said it would spend $200 million to accelerate AI adoption in critical sectors and help startups bring new AI technologies to market. The government said an additional $100 million will help small and medium-sized enterprises scale up and improve productivity using AI, and an additional $50 million will provide new skills training for workers displaced by AI.
Another $50 million to establish a new Canadian Institute for AI Safety and $5.1 million to implement the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, legislation aimed at regulating AI introduced in 2022 but not yet passed by the House of Commons. It is scheduled to be secured. Commons.
This announcement was widely supported by Yoshua Bengio, one of the leaders in AI research. Bengio has earned the nickname “Godfather of AI” (along with two others) for his role in developing this technology. He is a professor at the University of Montreal and the founder and scientific director of his AI research institute in Quebec called Mira. He was one of the speakers at Trudeau’s announcement.
“The Canadian government is acting responsibly and with this announcement is trying to put itself on the right side of history,” Professor Bengio said.
Speaking in French, he said such investments are critical to economic development and an essential tool to address national security and geopolitical challenges. Countries without AI computing infrastructure risk being left behind, he said.
He also said the Canadian Institute for Advanced Study, where he co-directs the Machine and Brain Learning program, has been tasked with creating a safety institute. The scientific questions the institute addresses are existential and absolutely need to be solved, he said.
“How do we build future AI systems that have the potential to surpass human intelligence and are safe? Will they be able to compete with humans? I don’t know what to do with that,” Bengio said. the professor said. “There is an urgent need to invest in this.”
AI systems require vast amounts of computing power, and that need is expected to grow as the technology becomes more widespread and new applications for it are developed.
Canada ranks fifth in the world for AI capabilities, according to . Tortoise Global AI Index, which measures countries based on various factors. However, when ranking based on AI infrastructure alone, Canada falls to her 23rd place.
Some experts said otherwise He was confident that Ottawa’s announcement would lead to substantial improvements.
Jim Balsillie, former co-chief executive officer of BlackBerry, said the plan was a good idea. But he said the government “has not demonstrated the ability to properly design and implement such investments.”
Other stakeholders, including Jim Hinton, founder of Own Innovation, said they were concerned that the federal government’s announcement did not address intellectual property issues related to AI.
Hinton’s firm helps technology companies with their intellectual property strategies, but is skeptical about the future of new initiatives given the fact that past government innovation efforts have been canceled or postponed. said.
“Unfortunately, this is just an announcement without any execution or substance,” he said. “Call me when you get results and you have a globally competitive Canadian AI company at scale. Or call me when your program is a huge failure.”
The Conservative Party said in a statement that it believes the government does not have sufficient capacity to implement the plans announced.
With report from Sean Silkoff
