Alberta pours in a capital $100M to promote Artificial Intelligence

• Alberta’s high tech sector gets $100 million boost from the provincial government.
• This giant investment would net over 5600 skilled jobs, 100 new organizations, dozens of new MNC offices, and laboratories in the province.

The government of Alberta has reportedly declared plans to spend a sum of $100 Mn in the coming five years to lure investments from high-tech firms specializing in artificial intelligence in the province.

According to an announcement made by Rachel Notley, Premier of Alberta, the province ascertains that this giant investment would net over 5600 skilled jobs, 100 new organizations, dozens of new MNC offices, and laboratories in the province.

Notley further states that Alberta has successfully drawn world-class Artificial Intelligence innovators to the province, citing that the Royal Bank of Canada, Google’s DeepMind Technologies, and Mitsubishi have set up research centers in the province.

The future belongs to high tech and this is what we are trying to do in Alberta, she said.

Sources claim that a preliminary funding of $27 million in AMII (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute) would witness a non-profit establish a new program to help organizations seeking to develop their in-house Artificial Intelligence capacity.

The provincial backing in consort with $25 Mn from Ottawa, would also permit the Edmonton-based AMII to set-up a new Calgary office, a press release stated.

John Shillington, the Chief Executive Officer of Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, was quoted stating that businesses all over the globe are moving to artificial intelligence and machine learning as key innovation drivers across every industry segment.

The province states that Alberta’s researchers are already ranked 3^rd in the world in machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, extensively due to efforts by AMII.

The investment in the five-year plan would also support the work of Alberta Innovates, a provincially subsidized corporation that fosters applied research & innovation in the private sector, cite sources familiar with the matter.