Big firms building city’s AI ecosystem
Despite a record low unemployment rate in Montreal and high demand for skilled technology workers, international giants that have been attracted to Montreal by the city’s artificial intelligence sector say they’re growing the talent pool, rather than dominating it.
“We create talent and we bring it back,” said Siegfried Usal, the vice-president of strategy, research and technology at Thales, which opened an artificial intelligence centre in Montreal in October.
Thales has had strategic partnerships with universities in Quebec for almost 20 years, Usal said. He made the comments during a panel discussion at the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal’s Forum stratégique sur l’intelligence artificielle on Monday.
The panel included representatives of several other large technology companies that have been attracted to the city for its artificial intelligence talent pool.
“We obviously benefit from the local talent that’s available here, but we give back to the local ecosystem by working together with our universities,” said David Beauchemin, the regional director of Google Cloud in Montreal.
Google has an artificial intelligence research office in Montreal, as does DeepMind, which shares the same parent company as Google. The heads of both of those offices continue to teach at local universities.
The big companies say they want to work with the local AI “ecosystem.”
“If we want Montreal to stand out as an artificial intelligence centre, that will take collaboration, not only from the big players like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Thales, etc., it also takes the local market working in conjunction,” Beauchemin said.
Working with local startups is “an obligation,” said Usal, adding that partnerships with smaller companies can help accelerate the development of products.
Microsoft is in the process of expanding the Montreal office of Maluuba, said Charles Verdon, a data innovation strategist at Microsoft. The international giant acquired Maluuba, a local startup, in January 2017.