Canada to host landmark G7 conference on Artificial Intelligence

Government leveraging AI to attract world-class talent, create jobs and generate innovative new opportunities for Canadians

October 17, 2018 – Toronto, Ontario

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a major economic opportunity for Canadians, and the Government of Canada is making the most of it. Consequently, the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, announced today that he will host the G7 Multistakeholder Conference on Artificial Intelligence on December 6.

The conference is an outcome of the G7 Ministerial Meeting on Preparing for Jobs of the Future that Minister Bains co-hosted in March with the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, and it will be one of the last events under Canada’s G7 Presidency. It will take place in Montréal during the week of the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference, the biggest machine-learning and AI conference in the world.

The Government has demonstrated global leadership to keep Canada at the forefront of AI. This includes:

• The Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy ($125 million) to help retain and attract top AI talent and companies that use AI;
• The launch of the SCALE.AI supercluster as part of the Government’s $950 million Innovation Superclusters Initiative; and
• Support for leading-edge AI research at the Vector Institute (Toronto), Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Edmonton) and Montréal Institute for Learning Algorithms through the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Earlier this year, Canada and France issued a Statement on Artificial Intelligence that reaffirmed their wish to promote a vision of human-centric artificial intelligence grounded in human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation and economic growth.

The Government will continue to actively engage with Canada’s AI industry leaders, civil society and academic experts to develop a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges that stem from artificial intelligence and to help maximize the economic potential of AI for Canadians.