Google has invested $4.5 million CAD ($3.4 million USD) in AI research in Montreal’s Institute for Learning Algorithm (MILA). The funds will pay for seven faculty members across the institute, as well as MILA faculty at the University of Montreal and McGill University.
The funding will also continue to support Yoshua Bengio, one of the few deep-learning experts currently working. University of Montreal and McGill together now count more than 150 researchers (including students) in deep learning. Google also announced that it is opening a deep learning and AI research group in its Montreal office.
Shibl Mourad, Head of Engineering, Google Montreal said in a blog post,
A new grant from Google for the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) will fund seven faculty across a number of Montreal institutions and will help tackle some of the biggest challenges in machine learning and AI, including applications in the realm of systems that can understand and generate natural language.
Tech giants Facebook and Apple have also been betting big on AI with talent appointments as well as startup acquisitions.