BRAIN DRAIN REVERSAL A BOON FOR CANADIAN TECH.
As a world-leading researcher in deep learning, Yoshua Bengio, head of MILA ( Montreal Institute f or Learning Algorithms) at the Université de Montréal has had countless offers from the U.S.
But he decided to stay, he says, “because all the right ingredients were here.”
Part of the reason is his belief that AI will drive the fastest growth economically for Canada for the next decade or more.
“A lot of wealth will be created where companies are doing it, where they are paying taxes, and where they will have employees. We have amazing assets.
The question is, how to keep critical mass here and remain academic and economic leaders.”
That is indeed the question. Talent migrating to the U. S. is a common enough Canadian tale. The lure of astronomically higher wages, unlimited research resources and VC firms with deeper pockets has naturally led (or forced) researchers and startups to head south of the border.
But the AI phenomenon could tell a different story. It’s really about the critical mass effect, Bengio notes. Montreal is well on its way, Toronto is moving up fast and Edmonton is now squarely on investors’ radars.
“We are sending a message to the rest of the world that Canada is the place for AI. Now Canadian and provincial governments are behind this. Companies along the road also want to work with us. We were given this edge; we have to keep and enhance it.”
The timing is crucial. Graham Taylor, assistant professor at Guelph and academic director of NextAI, says the loss of AI talent has been significant over the past five years. “UBC lost two great people in machine learning — Kevin Murphy and Nando De Freitas. Geoffrey Hinton now spends half his time with Google. Ruslan Salakhutdinov left U of T to join Carnegie Mellon and became director of AI research at Apple.”
But there are also telltale signs things are turning around. Hugo Larochelle, a machine learning specialist who left the Université de Sherbrooke to work at Twitter, returned to Montreal to join Google’s machine learning division, Google Brain.
Then there’s Steve Irvine, founder and CEO of Integrate. ai, who gave up a lucrative role at Facebook to return to Canada and form his startup. “I saw a lot of demand from big corporations who were very interested in understanding more of what was on the horizon, and realized the heritage and research talent being produced in Canada was unbelievable. If I wanted to build a global leading business in the AI space, I knew Toronto was a great place to be.”
There are also more heavyweights establishing headquarters in Canada with significant research offices, like Google Brain and Maluuba ( acquired by Microsoft) in Montreal, Taylor notes.
A second important shift is the government’s interest in and support of AI, he adds. “The signal coming from government is that they recognize it’s a big thing and Canada has an advantage; so we are seeing backing at all levels.”
The third plus is increased access to funding. “There are more opportunities for startups to secure funding here,” Taylor says. “It used to be you had to travel to the U. S. But the fact you can find funding within Canada is a signal things are changing.”
Interest in the startup community from all corners is going strong, he adds. “Everybody is keen on making this happen. NextAI, for example, is getting sizable donations from the likes of Magna, RBC and Scotia wanting to fund these companies. That kind of support will provide a critical mass of talented people, resources and funding.”
On the startup front, Irvine believes, what Canada really needs is big companies to spring up in this space. “Hopefully we can build one of those. We need to have heavy hitters show up and scale up quickly so they can compete for top talent.”
The U. S. political climate has also been making a stronger case for Canada, says Bengio, who has already seen an increase in applicants, including from established professors at top universities.
“Canada is a prime target for these people because of the time zones, the geography and the culture. A vast majority doing work in this field are not U.S. born and are worried about (which countries) will be next ( on the list). People in science and technology are very mobile, and we’re glad to take them.”
The political situation in the U.S. is something Canada can use to its advantage, Taylor says.
“Whatever is next, we can either passively wait it out and see, or actively try to capitalize on the sentiment and reduce the barriers to entry to get a jump start.”
WE NEED TO HAVE HEAVY HITTERS SHOW UP.