Google-linked AI company to open research lab in Montreal

DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet, is opening an AI research lab in Montreal.

The lab will be headed by Doina Precup, a professor in the computer science department at McGill University.

Precup will keep her job at the university and divide her time between it and DeepMind.

Founded in London in 2010, DeepMind was acquired by Google in early 2014. It’s known for developing a computer program that can beat human professionals at the game Go, and for its work with hospitals in the United Kingdom.

“The lab is going to focus on reinforcement learning, which is my specialty, and deep learning and the intersection of these kinds of algorithms,” Precup said.

Reinforcement learning is a method of teaching computer programs using a similar approach to the one many people use when training pets — encouraging desired behaviour through rewards.

“We try to set up reward systems so that automated algorithms can learn what’s the right thing to do, especially when there is a whole sequence of actions that need to be done,” Precup said.

Precup has worked on applications for the technique involving power systems, robotics and gameplaying.

Deep learning is an artificial intelligence technique that uses multiple layers of computer processing to roughly simulate the neurons of a human brain.

The lab won’t be focused on developing specific applications for artificial intelligence.

“We’re a fundamental research lab, so the focus is on developing the algorithms and understanding their properties,” Precup said.

The lab will start as a team of two, but Precup said she expects to grow that over the next year and a half. There’s no target number for how many people will eventually work at the lab, she said.

She described DeepMind as a “natural match” for her.

“For one thing, it will be very fun, because of the research orientation here, which is very aligned with my own goals,” she said. Several of her current collaborators already work for the company.

This will be DeepMind’s second research lab in Canada. An Edmonton lab was announced in July.