Ottawa hopes these firms will evolve into strong job creators and give Canada an economic boost. The government earmarked the cash in last year’s budget to support “innovation networks and clusters” as part of federal plans to help budding companies scale up significantly. Ray Bouchard said the Manitoba-based Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative aims to help firms quickly commercialize in the fields of deep learning and artificial intelligence. “The last thing we want to do as Canadians is spend $800 million ... on innovation and have all of that leave the country. Last month, a report by the federal government’s influential economic advisory council recommended Ottawa assemble “innovation marketplaces” that unite entrepreneurs and researchers with public and private customers.

Source: thestar March 12, 2017 16:52 UTC