The governments of Canada and Québec are providing funding to create an artificial intelligence (AI) computing cluster at Université Laval.
The funds will help the institution purchase state-of-the-art computing infrastructure to host the Pan-Canadian AI Compute Environment (PAICE) platform.
The Government of Canada is investing $9.6 million through the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (PCAIS). Ottawa launched the strategy in 2017, using it to grow the adoption of AI across Canada.
The federal government launched a subsequent phase in 2022, allocating $40 million towards computer capacity for AI researchers. The $9.6 million investment stems from that $40 million allocation.
The Government of Québec is providing $6.4 million in funding.
“To make Québec a key centre for advanced computing and artificial intelligence, we must invest in high-performance equipment,” Pierre Fitzgibbon, Québec’s Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, said in a statement. “This new equipment meets the growing needs of our research community, thus ensuring Quebec’s competitiveness in this field of the future.”
Mila – Québec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Calcul Québec, and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada will also collaborate to develop PAICE.
This is the latest investment geared towards AI research in Canada. Earlier this month, Google allocated $2.7 million in research grants for the country’s AI ecosystem.
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