THE NEXT WAVE OF AI

The rich talent pool that has attracted some of the world’s biggest tech companies to Montreal is also giving rise to an increasing number of local startups that are helping to bolster the city’s status as a hub of artificial intelligence.

Montreal has become a leading centre for artificial intelligence, attracting international giants like Google and Facebook. But local startups, too, are helping to raise the city’s status as an AI hub. Jacob Serebrin takes a look at four, in

Montreal has become known as one of the world’s leading centres for artificial intelligence research.

It’s a reputation that has attracted international giants like Google, Samsung, Facebook and Microsoft.

But not all of the cutting-edge work on artificial intelligence happening in Montreal is being done by these household names.

The same hotbed of artificial intelligence talent that’s attracting the world’s biggest tech companies is also leading to the rise of local AI startups.

These startups will play an important role in helping Montreal take the next step — from being a leading centre for artificial intelligence research to being a leading centre for artificial intelligence in general, said Andy Mauro, the co-founder and CEO of Automat, a Montreal-based startup that’s developed an AI system that can converse with people and is used for marketing.

“The opportunity to turn Montreal into a great AI hub worldwide is happening right now and we have to act quickly as a result,” Mauro said.

Startups will help do that because they can react more nimbly to market demands.

If they’re successful, these companies will become the most visible parts of Montreal’s AI sector internationally, the way that Google, Facebook, Apple and Uber have become the face of Silicon Valley.

“There is this opportunity to build disruptive companies and it is those companies that will ultimately lead to the world looking at Montreal as a centre” of AI, Mauro said.

Local companies will also have a bigger benefit to the local economy than large companies from elsewhere that come to Montreal looking for AI talent.

“The bulk of the benefit will not accrue to Montreal,” Mauro said, “if we do not invest in homegrown, headquartered startups here.”

While some Montreal-headquartered AI startups, like Automat and Element AI, are attracting attention and investments, others are still flying under the radar.

And it just might be one of these under-the-radar startups that becomes the next big name in AI.

Here’s how four of those companies are developing and applying artificial intelligence.

CHRISTINNE MUSCHI Mehdi Merai, CEO and co-founder of Dataperformers, at the offices of the Montreal startup that offers “science as a service.”

CHRISTINNE MUSCHI Mehdi Merai is CEO and co-founder of Dataperformers. “There is no artificial intelligence without data,” he says. “There is no machine learning without data.”