RBC setting up research lab in Montreal

Canada’s largest bank is joining global tech giants in setting up a research lab in Montreal to take advantage of the city’s growing artificial intelligence expertise.

The Royal Bank of Canada will open a Borealis AI lab in the new year, joining labs in Toronto and Edmonton. It hopes to have 10 researchers on staff in the first year of operation.

RBC will join Silicon Valley tech heavyweights like Facebook, Google and Microsoft, along with Samsung and other global players that have made a presence in the city.

“(Montreal) is absolutely one of the hottest places not only in Canada but on earth right now,” says Foteini Agrafioti, RBC chief science officer and Borealis AI head.

“It’s become very, very attractive with the momentum that they’ve built.”

Part of RBC’s focus is to develop technology to pick up early signs of seemingly disconnected events going on around the world by evaluating social media chatter and news in far-flung countries that could potentially have an impact on North American markets.

The Montreal lab will collaborate with the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms and renowned expert Yoshua Bengio, who has advocated for using AI to create homegrown tech champions that will keep intellectual property within the country.

Borealis AI, formerly called RBC Research Institute, aims to ensure academic freedom so talented researchers can stay in Canada and develop technologies that benefit the Canadian economy, Agrafioti said.