CONTENTS:

 Government Funding & News

• Federal government provides $24 million to establish Canada’s first national cannabis and brain health research consortium
• Alberta Premier Danielle Smith touts her government’s rules for AI data centres in video
• Ontario government launches framework for its Data Centre Playbook

 Research, Technology & Innovation

• Revenues at Canadian universities increased year-over-year in 2024/2025, but so did expenditures
• Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based AI research startup Transformer Lab launched a project to fully automate the research process
• Canadian companies that want to be spared from a new U.S. government ban on foreign-made robots must justify why they do not already make them in the United States

 VC, Private Investment & Acquisitions

• Sale of Canadian payment processor Moneris Solutions Corp. to U.S.-based Francisco Partners threatens Canada’s data sovereignty, payment leaders warn

 Reports & Policies

• Federal government organizations are “heavily dependent” on U.S. companies for AI, while Ottawa’s AI register lacks public accountability
• Canada’s new food security strategy invests in technology but overlooks the people who help farmers use it
• Antisemitism on Canadian campuses “is persistent and proliferating:” report for federal government
• Quebec needs to strengthen its innovation ecosystem to create globally competitive companies
• Use of lithium-ion batteries for backup power in data centres comes with increased fire risk
• Closed-loop liquid cooling for data centres saves on water consumption but can lead to contaminated wastewater

 The Grapevine – News about people, institutions and communities

• Western University researchers are investigating corrosion resistance to ensure safe, long-term storage of nuclear waste

 GOVERNMENT FUNDING & NEWS

 Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel announced a $24-million investment through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to establish the Canadian Cannabis and Brain Health Consortium, Canada's first national cannabis and brain health research consortium. This initiative will bring together researchers and expertise from across the country to study how cannabis affects brain health across the lifespan. It will also create a coordinated national research infrastructure to facilitate data harmonization, pooling and access across provinces and territories, establishing a national resource that researchers throughout Canada can use for years to come. The consortium's 10 multidisciplinary research teams will investigate topics ranging from the therapeutic potential of cannabis to its effects on brain health, sleep and prenatal exposure. Researchers will also study cannabis use among people with conditions such as psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and epilepsy to better understand its effects on health and well-being. Their findings will help improve health outcomes and support evidence-informed health care and public policy. In 2025, more than one in three Canadian adults reported having used cannabis, which was legalized for non-medical use in Canada in 2018. While many people use cannabis without experiencing serious adverse effects, important questions remain about its impact on brain health at different stages of life, particularly for youth, pregnant people, frequent users and people at increased risk of mental health harms. CIHR

Canada’s maritime innovators could get unique benefits from working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), but it’s less and less able to help them because of budget decisions, according to an internal document obtained by The Logic. “Dedicated departmental innovation funding has eroded,” said a May briefing note for the department’s top permanent official, deputy minister Paul MacKinnon. It cited the “loss” of an internal budget used to back trials of new technologies and a special allotment for work with Innovative Solutions Canada – whose job is to help smaller Canadian firms with clever ideas get their products tested and used by the government. DFO works in places almost nobody else does, from the deep ocean to the Arctic, which makes it “uniquely positioned to test innovations across diverse operational environments,” the note said. But it has scrapped its “departmental results fund,” the note said.  Other DFO documents have credited the fund with paying to test prototypes of year-round lighted navigational buoys and for research toward a new geographic information system – a detailed map-based tool loaded with data on fishing areas. Naomi Librach, a DFO spokesperson, told The Logic in an email that the fund had only been renamed to the “deputy minister’s reserve.” The department had a deputy minister’s reserve already at the time, she acknowledged, and it has no fixed amount. The Logic

The Government of Canada is investing $79.9 million over five years through Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s (ISED) Innovative Solutions Canada program to help Canadian small businesses develop, test and demonstrate innovative products and technologies, including through federal procurement opportunities. The government also launched the first measures to simplify procurement processes, help Canadian small businesses navigate federal contracting, and expand access to government opportunities. The government purchases more than $37 billion in goods, services and construction each year. As of June 25, 2026, a couple of months after its implementation, the “Buy Canadian Policy” has already applied to a portfolio of solicitations valued at over $3 billion, with $726 million in contracts awarded to date, Ottawa said. ISED

The Halifax-based Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, one of five federally supported global innovation clusters, announced funding for three projects:

• $4.1 million for Project OceanShade– Dynamic Electrochromic Marine Glass, a $11.7-project with industry partners contributing the remainder of the funding. This smart maritime technology project is underway, led by Miru, alongside Innovative Finishing Solutions and Maple Advanced Robotics. The project will develop and validate a Canadian-made dynamic glass system that automatically adapts to changing light conditions aboard marine vessels. Combining advanced materials with AI-enabled manufacturing, Project OceanShade aims to improve vessel efficiency, strengthen domestic supply chains and create new export opportunities for Canadian marine technologies. 
• $2.9 million for Dynamic Air Cushion Electric Vehicle (DACEV) Project, a $7.6-million project with industry partners contributing the remainder. The DACEV Project, led by Celerity Craft Inc. alongside ABS Canada Inc. and Quantum Technology Corp., is advancing a new generation of high-speed, energy-efficient electric vessels. By integrating innovative air cushion technology with electric propulsion, the project aims to significantly reduce emissions from coastal and inland marine transport while creating new economic opportunities through a DACEV Manufacturing and Innovation Centre in Squamish, B.C. The technology has the potential to serve up to 70 percent of the marine sector and support Canada's climate goals. 
• $2.4 million for the Advancing Technology for Premium Seafood Exports Project, a $6.2-million project with industry partners contributing the remainder. Led by Ocean Master Foods International and supported by HPP Tolling Facility Canada, the project will introduce Canada's first High Pressure Processing infrastructure designed specifically for seafood. By enhancing the flavour, texture, nutritional value and shelf life of uni (edible parts of sea urchins) and whitefish products, the initiative will unlock new export opportunities and strengthen Canada's position as a global leader in premium, sustainable seafood. Canada’s Ocean Supercluster

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) announced $34.2 million for 141 climate resilience projects in 128 communities across Canada. These projects are being supported by $ the Green Municipal Fund’s Local Leadership for Climate Adaptation Initiative. The funding supports adaptation plans, climate-focused asset management, risk assessments, financing studies and projects that reduce risks to communities, homes and businesses. The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that every dollar spent on climate resilience measures in Canada can save up to $15 in the long term. For example, Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia is receiving $785,380 to implement cooling measures in parks to protect residents from extreme heat. The City of Port Coquitlam in British Columbia is receiving $789,600 to advance flood-resilient infrastructure. The Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Ontario is receiving $649,870 to mitigate extreme heat for resident housing. The Kanesatake Lands in Quebec is receiving $1 million $1,000,000 to implement solutions to reduce flooding. ECCC

The prestigious California-based Milken Institute announced it will hold a half-day conference in Toronto for the first time on September 14, bringing together senior Canadian business and international financial leaders on the opening day of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit, prior to the Summit’s gala dinner later that day. The Global Dialogues Toronto will convene business leaders and decision-makers to explore how Canada can continue to enhance its position as a leading destination for investment, talent and long-term growth. The Global Dialogues Toronto, underwritten by TD Bank Group, will feature leading investors, senior executives, policymakers, and pension leaders, including:

• Raymond Chun, Group President and Chief Executive Officer, TD Bank Group.
• Judy Goldring, President & Chief Executive Officer, AGF Management Limited.
• Dave McKay, President & Chief Executive Officer, RBC.
• John McKenzie, Chief Executive Officer, TMX Group.
• Tony Minella, Chief Executive Officer, Eldridge Capital Management.
• Jack Neumark, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Fortress Investment Group.
• David Steinbach, Global Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner, Hines.

The program will explore how one of the world’s most stable and sophisticated economies is positioning itself for long-term investment leadership, driven by deep capital pools, global financial connectivity, a respected legal and regulatory framework and growing strategic importance in sectors such as critical minerals and energy transition. The discussions will be posted on the Milken Institute’s website and available for viewing. 

Expected panels include:

• Mobilizing Capital at Scale: Financing Canada's Next Growth Chapter. 
• Investing in Industries that are Changing the World. 
• Building the Global AI Economy: Capital, Sovereignty, and the Future of Competitiveness.
• Beyond Capital: How Long-Term Investors are Creating Value.

The Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) also is running a parallel, by-invitation event during the Canada Investment Summit. Cyrus Madon, chair of Brookfield Asset Management’s private equity group, HarbourVest Partners CEO John Toomey, and Camilla Languille, co-CEO of the private equity platform of Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investment firm, are among those speaking at the CVCA event – dubbed the Canadian Global Growth Forum – on September 14. Milken Institute

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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith touts her government’s rules for AI data centres in video

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made several promises about massive AI data centres in a newly released video, the Calgary Herald reported.

Smith, in a video answering “the six questions we hear most often about data centres in Alberta,” said nobody’s electricity bills will go up. Water use will be minimal because of technical advances, such as closed-loop liquid cooling.

There will be no cost to the public, only benefit from taxes, fees and royalties borne by the companies, Smith said.

“In short, AI data centres in Alberta, such as Meta’s $13-billion whopper, will be matchless economic bonanzas,” wrote Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid.

In some cases, opposition is derailing the data centres. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew vetoed a project planned for south of Winnipeg, citing environmental and social concerns.

Planned projects in B.C., Saskatchewan and Ontario have spawned huge protests.

Nonetheless, about 100 centres are being pushed across Canada. A few are already built and dozens more are in the works.

In the U.S., protests have arisen in Michigan, Arizona, New York, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, California, Pennsylvania and other states. Organized opposition groups are said to be active in 49 of the 50 states.

An Angus Reid Institute poll in June showed that 74 percent of Canadians doubt that any government can keep pace with AI, Braid noted.

Sixty-eight per cent would oppose a data centre anywhere near them. Most striking of all, 79 percent would tax companies that replace workers with artificial intelligence.

Smith said the Alberta government spent two years studying the mistakes made by other jurisdictions in developing data centres. “None of that is happening here,” because the government wrote made-in-Alberta rules to prevent these mistakes from happening here, she said.

“These are 100-percent private projects,” with no government grants, subsidies, discounted power or taxpayer backstop, Smith noted.

Alberta’s big advantage is abundant natural gas, which will power the data centres with electricity generated from plants built on site by the companies. That will create additional royalties from natural gas for the province, she said.

Meta’s generation plant, which use closed-loop liquid cooling, will cost about $4.6 billion. Meta will take no power from the grid; so, theoretically, Albertans won’t pay more for electricity. The cost of electrical connections and infrastructure are carried by the companies, not taxpayers.

Alberta charges large data centres a levy of up to two percent on the value of their computing equipment, in addition to local property taxes and royalties on the natural gas they use.

The Meta project alone will generate about $250 million a year for Alberta in taxes, levies, royalties and fees that help pay for health care, education and public safety, Smith said.

Alberta regulates data centres for air quality standards, noise and light pollution, “and monitoring for as long as the facility operates,” she said.

The provincial government is creating consistent, province-wide siting standards to ensure that large data centres are built on sites “far away from residential neighbourhoods,” she added.

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi maintained Smith’s UCP government has created a “Wild West free-for-all” on data centre proposals.

“The premier’s video is pure UCP strategy, which is we’re going to launch a listening tour but tell you what you need to think,” Nenshi told the Red Deer Advocate. “They’re not interested in listening to Albertans. They’re not interested in listening to their answers.” Danielle Smith video on Facebook

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Ontario government launches framework for its Data Centre Playbook

The Government of Ontario launched a framework for its Data Centre Playbook, aimed at helping the province attract the best data centre investments that drive economic growth, ensure Canadians’ data remains in Canada and deliver significant and meaningful benefits to local communities.

This framework will also ensure data centres pay the full cost of electricity, with the government only offering non-financial support to attract investments.

This playbook is an early initiative and key enabler of the province’s forthcoming artificial intelligence strategy to leverage the economic opportunities AI adoption will bring, including generating $122 billion in economic growth by 2035 and creating more than 17,000 new jobs every year, the government said.

“We have two choices,” Premier Doug Ford said in launching the framework. “We either do our own data centres and keep our own data sovereignty, or we let President Trump run us over like he has in other areas. I choose that we have data sovereignty.”

“We can build the economy of the future and ensure Canadians’ data remains in Canada, or we can get left behind and risk Canadians’ data being sent to the U.S. and elsewhere,” Ford said in a statement.

“Through our new Data Centre Playbook, our government is choosing to build the economy of the future to generate billions in economic growth and create thousands of new jobs, while ensuring new data centres play by the right rules and pay the full cost of electricity. Any data centre investment will need to invest significantly in local communities and pay more for electricity so no energy costs are passed on to hardworking families.”

As part of the Protect Ontario by Securing Affordable Energy for Generations Act, the Ontario government enacted new authorities that will give the minister of Energy and Mines the final decision on which large-load facilities are permitted to connect to the province’s electricity grid, including data centres.

With these enhanced authorities in place, Ontario’s Data Centre Playbook will only consider projects that accelerate economic growth with significant community investments, on terms that prioritize Ontario’s interests. The playbook is anchored in three pillars to guide approvals for new data centres:

• Advance economic development: projects that bring in significant investment, job creation and new tax revenue for the province and municipalities, support Ontario and Canada’s domestic supply chains and help businesses be more productive.
• Protect data security and digital sovereignty: projects that can advance Ontario and Canada’s digital sovereignty to protect critical data and safeguard people’s information. Canadians’ data will stay in Canada.
• Invest in communities and earn public confidence: projects that bring real benefits to local communities, significantly investing both financially and non-financially in host communities to drive local infrastructure developments, job creation and training, and future economic growth.

The government will only offer non-financial support to attract data centre investments, leveraging Ontario’s existing strategic advantages such as a clean and reliable electricity system, ample land space, cool climate and skilled workforce.

Data centres will also pay for the cost of their impact on the electricity system, ensuring people’s electricity bills are not increased, the government said. This will include proposed measures to address data centres’ impact on the electricity system by encouraging projects to build their own power generation and by establishing a separate rate class for large new data centres.

Under this proposal, new data centres above 1 megawatt in size would pay a higher rate than the industrial rate program for large electricity users.

With more modern data centre technology available today than there was decades ago, Ontario will only advance data centre projects that meet Ontario’s strict environmental standards around water consumption and noise, prioritizing projects with closed-loop liquid cooling systems that use virtually no water during operation.

The government is seeking public input through the Environmental Registry of Ontario and the Ontario Regulatory Registry for a 30-day public comment period beginning August 13, 2026. Input received through the consultation will help refine the proposed draft framework before the Ontario government releases the final Data Centre Playbook to support the broader upcoming AI Industrial Strategy that will lay a foundation to attract investment, support workers, protect intellectual property and build critical infrastructure. Govt. of Ontario

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Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) announced a repayable contribution of $1.95 million for Québec City-based Femtum. This funding will enable the business to pursue its growth internationally. Founded in 2017, Femtum specializes in laser solutions for manufacturers of photonic chips, in particular quantum photonic chips. The innovative SME offers a technology that considerably improves the carbon footprint of advanced manufacturing activities for quantum and conventional semiconductors. CED’s financial support enables Fentum to increase its production capacity by fitting out new manufacturing laboratories, to accelerate the commercialization of its products, and create over 20 new jobs in the photonics and quantum sectors. CED

In an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Culture Minister Marc Miller, 50 Canadian film and television organizations asked the government to make sure streaming giants like Netflix and Disney make “meaningful, predictable and enforceable contributions to Canadian programming.” Said the signatories: “Instead of building and sharing our own stories with the world, we would be left watching from the sidelines as foreign content increasingly defines what Canadians see on their screens. At a time when Canada is reaffirming its economic and cultural sovereignty, ensuring that those who benefit from the Canadian market also contribute to Canadian storytelling is not only reasonable, but necessary.” In June, Miller scrapped new rules that would have required streaming services to put 15 percent of their Canadian revenue toward Canadian content, citing concern that costs might get passed on to customers. He has yet to issue the broadcast regulator new guidance on what the government wants to see instead. The Motion Picture Association, which represents major streaming companies like Amazon and Netflix, and the U.S. envoy to Canada condemned the 15-percent requirement, claiming it discriminated against American firms. In their letter, screen industry groups, including the Canadian Media Producers Association, Directors Guild of Canada, and the Writers Guild of Canada, said that the requirement is fair, proportionate and should be maintained. Canadian Media Producers Association

France could become the latest European country to set up a new innovation body after a government-commissioned report recommended it create one “within months, not years.”  French research and economy ministers were given the report in June during the VivaTech conference in Paris, a gathering of start-ups, scientists, politicians and companies. While there’s no explicit confirmation yet that the Paris government will act, the ministers on stage seemed positive about new approaches to public innovation. “It’s really a very good idea,” said Philippe Baptiste, minister for research, higher education and space, of adopting innovation challenges modelled on those developed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, one of the ideas highlighted in the report. “That's one of the ways we have to use to basically connect business to our research labs.” New innovation agencies are being set up across Europe as governments worry about low growth, technological dependencies on the U.S. and sluggishness in existing research grant systems. Germany’s Sprind, one of the models for the report, was launched in 2019, and boasts of ultra-fast funding decisions and competitive challenges between teams of inventors. The U.K. has also launched an Advanced Research and Invention Agency, while the Netherlands is setting up a National Agency for Disruptive Innovation. Over the past few months, a Franco-German team has worked up a report scoping out how France could follow. Science|Business

 RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

 Revenues at Canadian universities increased year-over year-from $52.4 billion in 2023/2024 to $55.3 billion in 2024/2025, according to a Statistics Canada report. About 57 percent of university revenues came from private revenue sources such as student fees; non-government grants and contracts, donations and bequests; and investments; while the remaining 43 percent came from government revenues. Meanwhile, university expenditures increased from nearly $49 billion to nearly $52 billion in 2024/2025. The majority of expenditures came from operating expenses (91 percent), especially compensation, while nine percent came from capital expenditures. Statistics Canada

IDEaS is seeking innovative solutions capable of detecting, tracking and identifying micro and mini uncrewed aerial systems (drones) in complex urban environments. The IDEaS Counter-Uncrewed Aerial Systems (urban) Sandbox will bring selected innovators to downtown Ottawa from July 26 to 30, 2027, to showcase their game-changing technologies. Participants will also compete for a share of $1.75 million in prize funding. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, startup or an established company, this is your chance to showcase your innovation and help shape Canada’s future defence and security capabilities, IDEaS said. Application deadline is December 1, 2026, at 2 p.m. EST. IDEaS

Applications are now open for the Mission from MaRS: Food and Agtech Venture Accelerator. Toronto-based MaRS Discovery District is recruiting six to 10 Canadian ventures developing technologies that strengthen Can‌ada's ability to produce, manufacture and distribute food domestically while building a more resilient, low-carbon food system. Selected companies will receive support designed to advance commercialization and adoption, including:

• Curated introductions to potential customers, growers, operators and industry partners.
• Workshops and expert guidance to strengthen commercial readiness.
• Connections to domestic and international investors.
• Support navigating pilots, procurement, deployment and industry regulations.
• Market intelligence, capital, talent and communications services.
• Profile-building opportunities through the Mission from MaRS brand.

Under this year's Technologies Securing Food Sovereignty focus, MaRS is looking for ventures developing enabling technologies that strengthen Can‌ada’s domestic food system through controlled food production, domestic manufacturing and national food distribution. Applications close September 25 at 11:59 p.m. ET. MaRS

High school students designed five Canadian payloads and 15 experiments to test new technologies, conduct scientific research and collect measurements from the stratosphere. From August 15 to 23, as part of the STRATOS (ICARUS) 2026 Campaign, five weather balloons will be launched from the Timmins Balloon Base in Ontario. The following Canadian university teams and organizations are participating in this year’s campaign:

• PolyOrbite, Polytechnique Montréal.
• Mission SpaceWalker, University of Alberta.
• InSpace, Carleton University.
• LASSENA, École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS Montréal).
• Willi Lab, University of Lethbridge.
• Science Timmins
• WIBCA Montréal (West Island Black Community Association)

The goal of the campaign is to provide students with a unique opportunity to design, build and test small payloads before they are launched aboard stratospheric expandable balloon systems to altitudes of up to 35 kilometres. It is a hands-on and enriching experience that helps develop skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Canadian Space Agency

Sixty youth and 35 educators participated in the 2026 North-to-North Expedition, supported by the SOI Foundation that connects youth and educators with transformative expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. This year’s Arctic expedition celebrates the 30th anniversaries of the Arctic Council, the Nordic Arctic Programme of the Nordic Council of Ministers, and in partnership with Global Affairs Canada. By connecting diverse global youth with elders, educators, scientists, artists and policy leaders, the expedition will help advance understanding of Arctic policy and governance, climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development and healthy, vibrant communities. Endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and grounded in shared Arctic values, this journey empowers young people to amplify Arctic perspectives globally, share knowledge and build lasting connections that support a resilient and sustainable Arctic future. The route, onboard the expedition vessel MV Ocean Nova, started in Nuuk, Greenland to Qeqertarsuatsiaat, Paamiut, Arsuk, Davis Strait, Torngat Mountains National Park, Monumental Island, and ended in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Updates and photos of the expedition are available here. SOI Foundation

Toronto-based quantum computing company Xanadu and researchers at the University of Alberta (U of A) are joining forces to find better ways to treat cancer using quantum computers. The team is building software to quickly test and predict which compounds will make the best cancer-fighting drugs. Led by Xanadu’s algorithms team and U of A chemistry professor Dr. Alex Brown, the focus is on a special treatment called photodynamic therapy (PDT). Instead of using harsh chemicals that can make patients sick like traditional chemotherapy, PDT uses special light-activated compounds called photosensitizers. When these compounds are placed in the body and hit with a specific colour of laser light, they “wake up” and destroy tumour cells while leaving nearby healthy cells safe and sound. While PDT sounds like a dream treatment, creating the right light-activated compounds is extremely hard. Performing physical lab experiments to test new compounds is slow and expensive, and standard supercomputers as well as classical algorithms can’t always provide the required details for simulating how light interacts with molecules for PDT. That’s where quantum computing comes in. Quantum computers process information using the rules of atomic physics so they can model complex molecules far better than standard computers ever could. The work from this partnership has the potential to drastically speed up the time it takes to develop safer, more precise cancer treatments for patients everywhere. University of Alberta

Researchers at the University of Calgary, University of Alberta and Queen’s University are studying the microbiome – millions of tiny organisms like bacteria, viruses and fungi living together in a single habitat – that exists within wildfire smoke. Researchers in the emerging field, called pyroaerobiology, are trying to understand what microbes and chemicals exist in the combusted smoke lingering in our atmosphere. The multipronged series of research projects recently received $250,000 from the federal government’s New Frontiers in Research Fund. The funding comes on the heels of a prior $2-million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The aim is to develop more effective medical treatment. To find microbes and chemicals in wildfire smoke, the team uses high-volumetric air samplers to capture wildfire smoke, analyze those samples and develop microbial communities that can be grown and studied. They’ve also made use of the Government of Canada’s burn lab, located at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton, to burn natural components in a controlled setting and measure the outcome. BetaKit

The University of Toronto (U of T), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited signed a memorandum of understanding, with U of T joining CNL’s Academic Partnership Program. The partnership will provide eligible U of T students with access to research placements at CNL’s Chalk River Laboratories, as well as offering access to specialized workshops, conferences and university-industry collaborations. Potential areas of joint research include advanced reactor systems, advanced materials for next-generation reactors, nuclear fuels and fusion energy. They also include nuclear medicine and isotope technologies, artificial intelligence and digital technologies for nuclear applications, and studies examining the social, economic and policy dimensions of nuclear deployment. The partnership comes as Canada accelerates its transition to a more electrified, low-carbon economy, increasing the need for highly qualified talent, world-class research and stronger collaboration between universities, government and industry. University of Toronto

York University’s (York U) Connected Minds: Neural and Machine Systems for a Healthy, Just Society and the Waterloo, Ont.-based Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) announced a 16-month pilot partnership designed to build governance frameworks for AI and neurotechnology. The initiative combines Connected Minds’ university-based interdisciplinary research excellence with CIGI’s applied policy expertise to deliver a coordinated, multi-level engagement model that connects United Nations standard setting, Canadian legislative processes, and applied regulatory guidance. The primary goals of the partnership include creating a replicable framework for use in other domains, establishing Canada as a global leader in AI and neurotechnology governance, and producing policy outputs and communication tools for decision-makers. YorkU Connected Minds Scientific Director Shayna Rosenbaum pointed to the rapid advance of AI and neurotechnologies, saying that the partnership “ensure[s] that technological innovation advances in ways that strengthen society, protect human rights and contribute to a healthy, just future.” York University

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based AI research startup Transformer Lab launched a project to fully automate the research process. Transformer Lab opened up access to Primus, an autonomous research tool that co-founder and CEO Alis Asaria said can connect users with AI agents capable of producing “PhD-level” research in a small fraction of the time as their human counterparts. A global shortage of machine learning engineers has constrained AI progress; Asaria hopes Primus can fix that, and more. Asaria teamed up with co-founder Tony Salomone, who worked at Asaria’s previous retail tech startups Tulip and Well.ca, to build Transformer Lab in 2024. Primus projects run dozens or hundreds of different agents, which each use different AI models appropriate to their respective tasks. Some are tiny, while others are frontier models from big-name providers. The company is also training models of its own. Transformer Lab said Primus can turn a single prompt-based research question from a hypothesis to a completed research paper in “hours to days” without additional human direction. Using Primus, Transformer Lab said it has produced and published 30 “Masters to PhD-level” research papers in 30 consecutive days across domains ranging from materials science to physics, the interoperability of large language models, seismology, protein design, audio generation and 3D vision. While Transformer Lab did not provide more detail on how these papers were assessed to be at that level, one of them has already received a citation in published research by the Google DeepMind team. Transformer Lab has made Primus free to start, and is rolling it out to the public on a waitlisted basis, admitting researchers and developers as AI compute capacity permits. BetaKit

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office, the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the World Intellectual Property Organization announced the 9^th Annual IP Data & Research Conference. First launched in 2018, the conference is a free event that serves as a vital platform for experts to exchange insights and advancements in IP policy and research. This conference is instrumental in fostering innovation, shaping policy and facilitating global collaboration among researchers. This year, the conference will delve into the theme of From Innovation to Global Markets: The Role of IP. The high-level conference agenda and additional information will be made available on the 9^th Annual IP Data & Research Conference webpage closer to the event date. The conference, October 26-28, includes day one exclusively online via Microsoft Teams. Days two and three are in-person at Victoria Hall conference room of the John G. Diefenbaker Building in Ottawa, as well as online via Zoom. Registration is available here.

University of Waterloo researchers launched ULYSSES Climate Intelligence, a company aimed at converting their years of climate risk and adaptation research into practical tools that organizations can use to better anticipate risks, build resilience and reduce losses. Dr. Jose DiBella, Manager of Research and Partnerships at the Waterloo Climate Institute and a former postdoctoral researcher at Waterloo, launched the company with co-founders Dr. Sarah Burch, professor in the Faculty of Environment and Canada Research Chair in Transformative Climate Governance, and Simon Glauser, managing director of the Climate Institute. The team has designed an AI-enabled platform for companies of all sizes, financial institutions, industry associations and governments that supports decision-making to safeguard supply chains and other components of a business. The platform delivers user specific early warning alerts and comprehensive risk data that allow companies to reduce risks from extreme climate events across their supply chain. In their research, DiBella and Burch have found that companies often lack visibility into their supply chains, limiting their ability to manage risk. With the help of AI, the Ulysses platform provides this visibility, enabling companies to target spending and capacity where they can be most effective. University of Waterloo

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based technology company Convictional is shutting down at the end of August after failing to generate enough traction as a corporate collaboration platform. The startup announced in a blog post that it will permanently shut down on August 27. This comes after Convictional divested from its original e-commerce business last year and refocused on building an alternative to Slack for the AI era. The company’s results since then convinced co-founder and CEO Roger Kirkness to pull the plug because he said customers “are satisfied with the status quo.” Convictional, which still has “several years” worth of runway left, plans to return its remaining cash – a little less than half of the nearly $68 million in venture capital funding that the company had raised to date – to its investors, which include Y Combinator growth fund and Garage Capital, among others. BetaKit

Edmonton Unlimited unveiled its annual list of 10 companies to watch ahead of this year’s Startup Week. The 10 companies, which will be showcased at Edmonton Startup Week’s Launch Party this October, were chosen from a cohort of 59 applicants. Organizers say that breadth of field signals a growing “depth and momentum” in the Edmonton tech and startup scene.  Running since 2010, Launch Party watch list alumni include Edmonton anchor company Jobber, as well as Run With It Synthetics, FireSafe AI, and dozens of others. To make the selection, the innovation agency contracted the help of three business and investment leaders, including Ashif Mawji of ScaleGood Fund, Yasmine Al-Hussein of Yaletown Partners, and Aroon Sequeira, the founder of Valuepath Partners. Honourees were judged across five metrics: team and execution, traction and validation, market and opportunity, innovation and differentiation, and Launch Party fit. “The overall goal was to identify companies that are not simply promising ideas, but are demonstrating the capability, validation, and opportunity to build and grow from Edmonton,” said Stephanie Gillis-Paulgaard, the vice-president of brand and strategic partnerships at Edmonton Unlimited. BetaKit

Edmonton-based satellite-borne emissions-monitoring technology company GHGSat launched its two new methane-detecting satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in July, and recently captured their initial images of industrial emissions. The two satellites, named Eleonore (C-16) and Nuray (C-17), are part of the world’s largest fleet of methane-monitoring satellites, which together observe millions of sites annually. C-16 detected methane emissions at a landfill in South Africa above background levels, reaching up to 160 parts per billion. Purpose-built to support industry operators in emissions mitigation efforts, GHGSat’s constellation pinpoints the exact source of an emission and is uniquely capable of daily revisits to industrial sites. For the carbon-intensive industries and governments racing to control and reduce emissions, that faster cadence translates directly into faster action. GHGSat

Vancouver-based EarthDaily Analytics Corp. said it's eyeing additional federal government contracts, especially for work related to defence and security, after securing a $2.23-million contract with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). The company uses its earth-orbiting satellites to take pictures of the earth to monitor land and coastal areas and to track subtle changes occurring on the planet's surface. The resulting images, data and analytics can help companies in the natural resources, insurance and defence sectors model and manage risks and operations. EarthDaily, which was founded in 2021 by U.S. private-equity firm Antarctica Capital LLC using key assets purchased from now-defunct Canadian satellite imaging and geoanalytics company Urthecast Corp., said it will lead research and development for DRDC's space-based monitoring, alerts and tactical awareness project known as SMATAK, which is funded through the Canadian Safety and Security Program. Specifically, EarthDaily will explore how it can use artificial intelligence and geospatial technologies to enhance satellite data to improve border monitoring capabilities for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Through the project, the company is aiming to build the first-ever global satellite constellation that can monitor Canada's entire border on a daily basis. Financial Post

Oakville, Ont., is the latest Canadian municipality to enact a one-year moratorium on data centres as developers and AI companies race to build digital infrastructure across the country.  The moratorium, known as an interim control bylaw, passed unanimously during a special council meeting after being proposed just one day earlier. The bylaw will take effect immediately. It prohibits the development of any data centre on specifically zoned lands throughout the town, about 35 kilometres west of Toronto. That includes parts of the Parkway Belt West, a provincial corridor set aside for highways and utilities. During the moratorium period, Oakville will review the municipality’s land use planning policies and analyze ways to mitigate potential “adverse effects” from data centres, including concerns about noise, vibration and emissions. Oakville is the latest in a string of municipalities in four provinces to set in motion a temporary moratorium on data centres, including Mississauga, Ont., Rocky View County, Alta., Saskatoon, Sask., and Cumberland County, N.S. Canada’s National Observer

An Alberta court has dismissed an application by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary’s company – O’Leary Digital Limited – to strike down a judicial review on consultation and water rights for the proposed Wonder Valley artificial intelligence data centre project in northern Alberta. The $70-billion project is proposed for Municipal District of Greenview. The municipality has been approved to withdraw six million cubic metres of water annually from the Smoky River for the project. O’Leary Digital wanted to strike a judicial review application from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation on the basis that as a directly affected party, the company was not served within the required timeframe. Justice Parminder K. Johal deemed that O’Leary Digital’s connection to the licence was speculative and application for judicial review could go ahead. The company also sought intervenor status or to be added as a respondent for Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation’s judicial review and Johal dismissed that application as well. The Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation said it expects the review will go ahead in December. CBC News

Ottawa-based Calian Group Ltd.’s U.K. subsidiary, Calian UK, secured a 15-year, $296-million agreement with Raytheon UK to provide collective training services for the British Army, beginning in October. Calian UK's role in the British Army’s Collective Training Service program builds on company’s legacy support to the UK Ministry of Defence and British Army under Project NUMIDIAN, where Calian UK has delivered specialized collective training services designed to expose the British Army to challenging, contemporary threats and enhance operational readiness. Collective training brings soldiers, commanders and allied forces together in realistic operational environments to strengthen coordination, interoperability and mission effectiveness before deployment. Calian

DIGITAL, one of Canada’s five federally supported global innovation clusters, launched its Defence Market Access Series, a national webinar program designed to help commercial tech companies understand how Canada’s defence ecosystem works and dual-use (commercial and defence/national security) products. “It isn’t easy to manage two markets, and the defence market is a demanding one,” said Nadia Shaikh-Naeem, chief programs officer at DIGITAL. “It requires a significant amount of security. It requires a significant amount of capacity within the organization [and] strategic focus.” The series arrives as Canada directs new attention and investment toward its defence industrial base. The federal government’s renewed focus on defence – chiefly through its $6.6-billion Defence Industrial Strategy – has created an opening for companies working in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity, healthtech, and more. It has also exposed how unfamiliar many commercial tech founders are with this market. Companies enter the sector by selling directly to the government, partnering with a major contractor, or joining a partnership. Each route has its own procurement process, security requirements, integration demands and timelines. Just obtaining the appropriate security clearance can take 18 months or more, which creates a practical challenge for smaller companies with limited runway. The sessions covered in DIGITAL’s Defence Market Access Series span procurement, funding, intellectual property, partnerships, working with prime contractors, and learning the culture of the defence industry. DIGITAL has identified roughly 60 completed or active projects in its portfolio that either have defence applications or are exploring them. DIGITAL’s Defence Market Access Series runs June through November 2026. Register here for the next session on August 20. BetaKit

Vancouver-based AbCellera Biologics Inc. said it plans to use the money from issuing $200 million worth of new shares and warrants mainly to fund further development of its own drugs – including its lead clinical program, ABCL635 – a newer and more expensive line of business than its work as a research partner for other pharmaceutical firms. AbCellera reported early success with its ABCL635 treatment for hot flashes, a common menopause symptom, and its share price promptly soared, now up more than 50 percent since last week. That’s the highest its stock has reached in more than three years, dipping only slightly (and temporarily) after the new announcement. AbCellera

Moltex Energy announced that Mississauga, Ont.-based Nuclea Energy agreed to acquire Moltex’s nuclear technology portfolio, after Moltex Energy Canada’s U.K.  parent firm, Moltex Energy Limited, went into administration last year. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed. Moltex Energy Canada had planned to develop its nuclear reactor technology in New Brunswick. Moltex’s technology platform was developed over more than a decade, encompassing the company’s Waste to Stable Salt (WATSS) used nuclear fuel recycling process, Stable Salt Reactor and FLEX reactor technologies. The portfolio includes 80 granted patents across nine patent families, together with nine pending patents covering the WATSS recycling process, and has benefited from the commitment of more than $96 million in private, Canadian and U.S. public-sector funding. Moltex received $5 million from Nova Scotia’s Liberal government of Brian Gallant and $50 million from the federal government to develop its technology. Nuclea intends to retain Moltex Energy Canada as a focused research, engineering and regulatory-development business supporting the continued advancement of the acquired technologies. Moltex Energy

Calgary-based Stampede Drilling Inc. said its drilling rig, which has been undergoing upgrades for potential deployment to Greenland in support of Greenland Energy Company’s drilling program in the Jameson Land Basin, remains in Canada and has not arrived in Greenland. Inaccurate information has appeared on various social media platforms. Stampede also said it will not be landing a drilling rig in Greenland unless Greenland Energy’s drilling program receives all required regulatory consents and approvals of Greenlandic authorities. Separately, U.S.-listed Greenland Energy said this week it would postpone drilling until winter 2027. The venture has faced strong pushback from Greenland’s government. U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to take control of the territory – as well as Greenland Energy’s links to Trump administration ally and television host Dr. Phil McGraw – have thrust the small drilling project into the geopolitical spotlight. Stampede Drilling

Canadian companies that want to be spared from a new U.S. government ban on foreign-made robots must justify why they do not already make them in the United States – and pledge to start doing so soon. Citing risks to national security, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced last week it would bar the import, sale and marketing of not-yet-approved foreign advanced robotic devices, such as humanoid and quadruped dog-style robots. The move was widely viewed as targeting China, yet the FCC made it clear the rules apply to all countries. A company seeking an exemption must submit “a detailed, time-bound plan” to set up or expand U.S. manufacturing for the robot in question. Reuters

The Gates Foundation gave the University of Washington (UW) the largest grant in its history, a 10-year award worth $540 million for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent research unit at UW. Part of the UW School of Medicine, IHME will use the record grant to expand its Global Burden of Disease study, the world’s largest systematic effort to measure deaths, illness, disability, injuries and health risks. The study currently provides health estimates for approximately 925 locations, but with the grant, that number is expected to grow to nearly 5,000 in the future. The grant will support IHME’s health forecasting and future-scenarios work. IHME produces health forecasts through 2100 for every country, helping leaders anticipate population changes, disease trends, health risks and the policy choices they face. IHME plans to connect those forecasts more closely to the latest disease burden findings, helping decision-makers assess and develop disease-prevention efforts. The new funding will also expand IHME’s tracking of health financing, which currently provides a comprehensive accounting of health expenditures across 204 countries. Those data help governments and funders assess whether resources are reaching the populations, diseases and places that have the greatest needs. Forbes

For the first time, scientists have used artificial intelligence to create new kinds of viruses, raising hopes for medical advances while also raising the disturbing possibility that the technology could someday be used to invent dangerous pathogens. Researchers long ago learned how to manufacture viral genomes; they are used to investigate antiviral drugs and vaccines, as well as to learn how viruses work. But the new study, published in the journal Science, goes well beyond duplicating viral genes. Scientists at Stanford University and the Arc Institute, a research organization in Palo Alto, Calif., taught AI to recognize patterns of DNA structure in nature, and then to use that data to write recipes for entirely new viruses. The researchers followed those recipes to create DNA molecules, which they inserted into bacteria. The modified bacteria then produced viruses never seen in nature. The viruses were able to infect other bacteria, demonstrating that they were viable. The viruses dreamed up by AI do not pose a threat to humans, because they are all similar to a naturally occurring virus called Phi X-174, which can infect only E. coli bacteria. But the new study adds to growing worries that AI might enable the creation of a new generation of biological weapons, from deadly poisons to unstoppable pandemics. The New York Times

France's top court blocked ​a bill banning social media access for under-15s, saying it infringed upon freedom of ‌expression and delivering a setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who asked his government to rewrite the legislation. The bill would have barred children younger than 15 from opening a social media account from September 1. Accounts already open would be ​closed within four months by social media platforms, which would also need to use age ​verification approved by the French privacy regulator. But France's Constitutional Council found that the ⁠bill, while requiring everyone to give proof of age, failed "to specify the conditions and limits" under ​which it should be provided, as well as infringing on freedoms and privacy. "The Council holds that the ​contested provisions, on the one hand, disproportionately infringe upon the freedom of expression and communication and, on the other, fail to provide the legal safeguards necessary to ensure the right to respect for private life," it said. French lawmakers had approved ​the bill in July, becoming the first in Europe to follow Australia, whose world-first ban barred ​access to platforms including Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube for under-16s in December. Reuters

Romania shut down its sole nuclear plant, which uses Canadian-built CANDU reactor technology, because the reactor doesn’t have enough cooling water, due to a drought that has caused record-low levels in the Danube River. The drought-hit Danube, whose waters cool the Romanian plant in Cernavoda, already forced Nucelarelectrica to shut down ⁠one reactor ​in late July. Last week, the company said it needed to shut the second reactor “due to the significant and ongoing drop” in the river’s water level, and it did not foresee a restart in within the next 10 days. Nuclearelectrica’s two 706-megawatt reactors account for 20 percent of the country’s power ⁠output. Romania has declared a state of energy emergency throughout August and asked companies and households to reduce consumption during peak hours. Shutting down the reactor posed immediate problems for Moldova, Romania’s eastern neighbour, ⁠which has also endured low river levels and relies on Romanian power ​to cover up to 60 percent ​of its own electricity shortages. The drought has hit nuclear power providers across Europe. France, which uses nuclear power to generate about 70 percent of its electricity, recorded a more than 20 percent shortfall in nuclear energy production capacity last week, a record deficit caused by outages linked to drought, extreme heat and a jellyfish invasion, according to Agence France-Presse calculations based on Électricité de France data. Hungary, neighbouring Romania, has avoided a complete shutdown of its only nuclear plant, Paks, whose four reactors are also cooled by the Danube. But with the river expected to drop further, Hungary’s prime minister, Péter Magyar, said the government had ordered the construction of a submerged weir to try to control water flows nears the plant. The Guardian

VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

 Sale of Canadian payment processor Moneris Solutions Corp. to U.S.-based Francisco Partners threatens Canada’s data sovereignty, payment leaders warn

Canada’s payments leaders are warning that the sale of Canadian payment processor Moneris Solutions Corp. to a foreign owner could bolster a growing trend that threatens the country’s data sovereignty and compromises the infrastructure used to move money.

Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal said they have agreed to jointly sell Moneris to California-based Francisco Partners.

The U.S. private equity firm will pay about $2 billion in cash for the payments processor, which handles one in three transactions in Canada. Co-owners Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal will split the proceeds equally.

The deal marks the end of the merchant payments business for Canada’s big banks, all of which have sold or outsourced the enterprise.

The sale has prompted concerns over whether Canadian businesses’ data and financial security could be at greater risk as Ottawa grapples with its increasingly volatile and uncertain relationship with Washington.

“Payments is a crucial part of banking because it’s an important part of how companies run their businesses every day, and it’s their cash flow,” Nic Beique, chief executive and founder of Calgary-based processor and financial technology company Helcim, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

“It erodes sovereignty because it’s outsourcing a really important part of the financial services landscape to non-Canadian entities.”

“Canada keeps letting strategically useful domestic capabilities become ordinary saleable companies instead of building durable institutions around them, because our foreign-investment frameworks don’t capture what strategic capacity looks like in a digital economy,” wrote Vass Bendar, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, in an op-ed in The Globe and Mail.

In 2024, Canadian payments company Nuvei was taken private in a US$6.3-billion deal led by U.S. private-equity firm Advent International, Bendar noted. The company had gone public only four years earlier in what was then the most valuable technology IPO in TSX history, she said. “Canadian shareholders retained minority stakes, but control shifted abroad.”

In September, AI Minister Evan Solomon said at a conference in Montreal that Canada needs to create a sovereign digital economy that is “free from coercion” and that someone “can’t decide to turn off.”

In April, the European Union’s Financial Services Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque told The Globe and Mail that governments will need to increase control over key technologies that underpin the economy, particularly in financial services. Similar to the Canadian financial sector, Europe depends heavily on U.S. technology giants, such as Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., for payments infrastructure, and the EU is attempting to reduce that reliance.

In a worst-case scenario, a foreign entity or government could opt to influence or cease the flow of payments in Canada, Beique said. There is also concern over foreign firms owning and accessing data and analytics from Canadian businesses.

Colin Deacon, Independent Senator from Nova Scotia and member of the Senate’s banking, commerce and economy committee, said he hopes the government will review the Moneris deal with a higher level of scrutiny, even though Ottawa may want to avoid disrupting its relationship with or investment from the U.S.

Thousands of businesses in Canada use Moneris’ point-of-sale machines and other services that allow businesses to accept and manage payments. The processor services more than 325,000 points of commerce, processes more than $5 billion in transactions every year, and represents one-third of transactions across the country.

Moneris said in a statement announcing the sale that “its commitment to serving Canadian businesses will remain unchanged.” The company said it will maintain operations in Canada and committed its “dedication” to local communities.

The sale of Moneris requires regulatory approvals, including clearance under the Competition Act. The Globe and Mail

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New York City-based Brookfield Asset Management, whose parent company Brookfield Corporation is headquartered in Toronto, backed NVIDIA’s US$500-billion financing push, along with Wall Street titans Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and KKR. They are partnering with NVIDIA to raise more than US$500 billion in third-party capital to help the chip company’s customers finance AI infrastructure. Memorandums of understanding signed with six of the world’s premier financial institutions to create these partnerships aim to establish the first compute financing platforms of their kind at global scale to enable the AI infrastructure buildout across NVIDIA’s ecosystem, including leading frontier AI labs, enterprises and AI clouds, NVIDIA said. NVIDIA

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan backed San Francisco-based tech firm Databricks US$5-billion funding round, which valued the company at US$190 billion. Other investors include major financial services firms and sovereign wealth funds. Databricks sells software that clients use to manage their information and other key building blocks of AI applications and agents. The company claims its revenue run rate – a measure of recent sales projected over a 12-month period – has crossed US$7 billion. One growth factor has been the spread of AI within clients’ businesses, from engineering to areas like marketing and customer support. The Logic

Toronto-based Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. secured more than US$215 million for the first close of its second fund targeting credit-risk transactions with Canadian banks. The fund will invest in significant risk transfers (SRTs), which let banks shift some of the credit risk tied to loan portfolios to non-bank financial institutions, like private credit funds and hedge funds, and free up regulatory capital. Polar CEO Greg Lemaich said that SRTs are becoming an “important” financing tool as banks “face increasing regulatory and balance sheet constraints.” Canada’s Big Six banks have also reportedly used SRTs to reduce exposure to portfolios containing AI-linked loans. Polar has committed roughly US$1.3 billion across 20 SRTs since 2011 and expects to deploy the new capital immediately, with several deals anticipated later this year. The asset manager had US$5.7 billion under management as of June 30. Polar Asset Management Partners

Toronto-based Portage fintech and financial services investment platform led a nearly €100-million Series D funding round at a valuation of more than ​​€1 billion for FINN, a German company that offers subscriptions for vehicle services. BC Partners and Runway Growth provided more than €40 million in debt financing. SevenVentures, the investment arm of German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1, also participated through a media-for-equity partnership. This latest financing marks the beginning of a new phase for the company, focused on scaling its platform and operational infrastructure while further expanding profitability, Portage said. Portage

Waterloo, Ont.-based Palitronica – a University of Waterloo spinoff – closed its Series A financing round led by the Business Development Bank of Canada’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, with participation from Three Kings Capital, Frostbite, and Unpopular Ventures. The amount of funding wasn’t disclosed. Palitronica’s technology checks electronic parts by measuring how tiny electrical pulses pass through them. If the findings don’t match those from a part known to be good, it’s a sign of a fault in the part being tested – whether it’s a defect, a supplier’s substitution of a cheaper component or a security breach. This funding round follows Bell Textron’s selection of Palitronica solutions to provide state-of-the-art cyber assurance to critical electronics for the MV-75 Cheyenne, previously known as the U.S. Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program. Effective with this funding round, Matthew Monteyne, previously the chief operating officer, will step up as the new chief executive officer. Palitronica said it will use the capital to accelerate R&D, expand engineering, product and go-to-market teams, and scale customer acquisition and strategic partnerships. Palitronica

Toronto-headquartered Intact Private Capital led a US$14-million extension to Scotland-founded Wordsmith AI’s Series B round, alongside existing investors Highland Europe and Index Ventures. FT Ventures also has become a shareholder in Wordsmith, which makes AI for in-house lawyers. Wordsmith said its platform is now used by more than 500 companies. Unlike legal AI startups serving both law firms and corporate legal departments, Wordsmith is built exclusively for in-house legal teams. Wordsmith AI

Toronto-based enterprise AI software startup Fisent Technologies raised US$4.3 million, in all-equity, all-primary financing led by U.S-based fintech investment firm FINTOP, to rapidly grow its software business automation platform. FINTOP partner John Philpott is joining Fisent’s board. The 16-person Fisent Technologies, whose AI software automates work for highly regulated industries such as insurance and health care, said it would use the money to hire more roles on its go-to-market team, accelerate product development and boost its “deployment engineering capabilities.” BetaKit

Winnipeg-based TetraGen Robotics, which is developing autonomous welding robots for general manufacturing, raised $1.8 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by StepChange Capital, with significant participation from Emend Vision Fund and Jim Richardson. TetraGen has already deployed its AI-enabled and vision-guided robots in real production environments in Canada. The company said it will use this investment to accelerate the expansion of its autonomous robotic welding systems across North America, strengthen its engineering and commercial teams, and support customer deployments with manufacturers throughout the region. TetraGen Robotics

Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. sold the last of its shares in BlackBerry Ltd., ending a once-close but ultimately money-losing 16-year relationship with the Canadian technology pioneer. Fairfax revealed in a U.S. regulatory filing that it no longer owns any shares of BlackBerry. According to U.S. regulatory filings, Fairfax had 26.26 million shares in early May, down from 35.4 million last September. It held 46.7 million shares for about 11 years, but began selling down its holdings some time after March 31, 2025, the filings indicate. Fairfax was one of BlackBerry’s largest and most influential shareholders for years, with eight per cent of the stock as of early 2025. Fairfax earned about US$200 million in interest income over 10-plus years while holding US$500 million of BlackBerry’s debentures, Fairfax Financial CEO Prem Watsa said in his annual letter to his shareholders published in 2024. However, Fairfax appears to have lost far more than that on its BlackBerry stock, for which it paid about US$882 million. Watsa said in the 2024 letter that Fairfax had bought its then-current holding of 46.7 million shares for an average US$17.16 apiece. Other than a few days in 2021 when “meme stock” speculators drove up the share price, BlackBerry stock has not traded anywhere close to Fairfax’s average cost since early 2012. Based on when Fairfax sold down its BlackBerry stock, Fairfax would have booked a loss of at least US$288.5 million. That’s a best-case calculation based on the stock’s peak prices during those periods. Fairfax likely received less than that, meaning its losses would have been much higher. The Globe and Mail

Halifax-based company The Rounds, which developed a social network for medical professionals, was acquired by Toronto-based digital advertising firm Native Touch. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The Rounds’ eight-member team is remaining in Halifax and growing, said CEO Tim Rice, who will remain with the company. Co-Founders Blair Ryan, Will Harris and Michael Clory started the company in 2012 with the belief that physicians and other medical practitioners commonly encounter problems in treating patients that they simply don’t know the answers to. They decided that doctors could find solutions by canvassing a broad range of their peers, some of whom may have encountered similar problems. The team developed a secure, closed network that verified medical professionals could join free. The company monetized the network by selling sponsorships to corporations that wanted to reach the medical community, and this is the part of the business that has found synergies with Native Touch. Entrevestor

Vancouver-based capital-pool company Harmony Acquisitions Corp. and Toronto-headquartered Vimy Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced a non-binding letter of intent for deal that will constitute a reverse-takeover of Harmony. The deal would see Vimy, renamed as Vimy Pharmaceuticals Corp., go public on the TSX Venture Exchange. Vimy, which is advancing a portfolio of essential medicines as generic pharmaceutical products intended to support patients, health care systems and Canada's life sciences sector, has applied to produce and sell a generic version of Ozempic in Canada. TMX Newsfile

REPORTS & POLICIES

 Federal government organizations are “heavily dependent” on U.S. companies for AI, while Ottawa’s AI register lacks public accountability

Some federal government organizations are “heavily dependent” on U.S. companies for their AI tools, while Ottawa’s Federal AI register lacks public accountability, according to a University of Toronto study.

U of T researchers, in a study titled Bureaucratic Silences: What the Canadian AI Register Reveals, Omits and Obscures, analyzed the Federal AI register’s complete data set of 409 systems used across more than 40 federal institutions. The public list describes current or planned uses of AI across the federal service.

“Our findings reveal a sharp divergence between the rhetoric of ‘sovereign AI’ and the reality of bureaucratic practice,” the researchers said.

“One of the things that I was really surprised to see is that there are certain government (organizations) . . . entirely dependent on third-party developers, like Microsoft, OpenAI, Google,” study lead author Dipto Das, a postdoctoral fellow at U of T, told the Ottawa Citizen.

For example, three out of four of the AI systems listed for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission were developed by Microsoft.

The issue of where an AI tool is developed raises several questions, Das said. How secure is the data? How much control does the government have? And are Canadian taxpayers paying to maintain technological infrastructure on behalf of a third-party company?

The Federal AI Register exposes the infrastructural dependencies that complicate and highlight the persistent challenges associated with Canada’s claims of AI compute sovereignty, according to the study.

A substantial proportion of public-sector systems relies on tools developed by transnational vendors, notably Microsoft, revealing how AI deployment is embedded in the political landscape, technical expertise, global flows of capital, data, labor, compute infrastructure and natural resources, the study noted.

Reliance on externally developed tools, as revealed by the federal government’s own AI repository, “indicates that Canada’s pursuit of sovereign AI is structurally constrained beyond domestic policy, undermining claims of AI sovereignty and technological autonomy.”

These tensions are further illustrated by partnerships emerging from Canada’s sovereign compute investments, where federally funded domestic firms collaborate with foreign entities to develop a “fully sovereign AI factory" using NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise computing infrastructure. Both companies are based in California.

According to the study, while 86 percent of federal government AI systems are deployed internally for efficiency, the Register systematically obscures the human discretion, training and uncertainty management required to operate them. “By privileging technical descriptions over sociotechnical context, the Register constructs an ontology of AI as ‘reliable tooling’ rather than ‘contestable decision-making.’”

“We conclude that without a shift in design, such transparency artifacts risk automating accountability into a performative compliance exercise, offering visibility without contestability.”

There are over 200 departments and agencies in the Government of Canada, yet only 42 organization appear on the Federal AI register. Of which, an even smaller number of organizations, such as the Canada School of Public Service, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, National Research Council Canada, Statistics Canada, Global Affairs Canada, and Employment and Social Development Canada account for the majority of systems.

Systems are almost evenly split between in-house development (43.3 percent) and external vendors (38.1 percent), while open-source development remains limited (6.1 percent).

The concentrated reliance on a small number of foreign technology providers in public-sector procurement dynamics can shape both the technological choices and governance practices surrounding public-sector AI systems, according to the study.

In Canada, federal responsibilities include security and national defense, whereas provinces govern domains such as health, education, and welfare, with areas like immigration and agriculture falling under concurrent jurisdiction.

Though the Federal AI Register lists AI systems operating across several of these areas, “it offers little visibility into how systems coordinate across jurisdictional domains,” the study said.

The researchers said their findings suggest that the Canadian AI Register enacts a technical model of algorithmic accountability, emphasizing systems’ capabilities, efficiency gains and functional outcomes while leaving administrative processes, training arrangements and institutional capacity largely unclear.

This framing presents the federal government’s adoption of AI as a technical choice or solution rather than an organizational transformation, which obscures the bureaucratic processes necessary to use these technologies, according to the study.

In terms of uncertainty, some descriptions convey experimentation, others convey stability and provisionality, while many omit discussion of it entirely, the study said.

“This forces frontline practitioners to infer failure modes and manage ambiguity, thus constraining discretion and increasing the system’s practical burden as these tools shape upstream triage and attention.”

Canada organizes AI governance through a bifurcated oversight model that differentiates between public-sector and private-sector AI operations. This has resulted in a regime characterized by substantial federal investments in private-sector AI development, alongside weak and decentralized regulatory oversight frameworks, the study said.

“There are no centralized laws, regulations or frameworks; instead, a patchwork of codes, guidelines and directives is unevenly applied to public and private sector institutions.”

Flagship initiatives such as the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy and the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy have prioritized research capacity, commercialization, standards development, talent attraction, significant investments in compute infrastructure, and institutional support, positioning Canada as a global AI hub.

“Their outcomes raise concerns of disproportionately benefiting industry actors, offering limited mechanisms for public accountability, and externalizing public benefits to foreign actors,” the study said.

Beyond Canadian AI policy and algorithmic accountability research, the researchers said their findings raise broader concerns about public trust and democratic governance.

Public-sector AI systems increasingly operate in high-stakes domains, such as immigration, social services, and security, where legitimacy depends not only on procedural compliance but on citizens’ ability to understand, contest and seek redress for algorithmically mediated decisions, “and hence, transparency mechanisms are central to sustaining public trust.”

“Our analysis complicates this assumption by showing that partial, stylized or selective disclosure can produce the appearance of accountability without substantive guarantees,” the researchers said.

“For affected individuals, such representations offer little insight into how decisions are made, where discretion resides, or how harms might be challenged. Such disclosure practices risk shifting accountability onto the public without providing the visibility or institutional means needed to exercise it, thereby weakening the democratic promise of transparency.” ACM Digital Library

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Canada’s new food security strategy invests in technology but overlooks the people who help farmers use it

 OPINION

By Khondokar Humayun Kabir and Ataharul Chowdhury

 Khondokar Humayun Kabir is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph. Ataharul Chowdhury is associate professor of Capacity Development and Extension at the University of Guelph. This commentary first appeared here in Policy Options.

 Canada’s new food security strategy promises billions of dollars for a more affordable and resilient food system. But investments in technology, infrastructure and production will only work if farmers have the knowledge and support to put them into practice.

The need for such a strategy is clear. Canadians have faced among the highest food inflation rates in the G7 in recent years. Five retailers control three-quarters of grocery sales, and Canada imports 88 percent of its fresh fruit and 72 percent of its vegetables, leaving consumers vulnerable when supply chains are disrupted or tariffs increase costs.

In June, the federal government launched Canada’s first National Food Security Strategy, committing more than $3 billion over 10 years to strengthen grocery competition, expand food processing, increase greenhouse production and reform regulations.

The plan aims to increase the share of healthy food produced in Canada from 75 percent to 85 percent by 2032, double the value of greenhouse and indoor farming, and reduce greenhouse labour and energy costs through automation.

Achieving these goals will depend on farmers adopting new tools and practices suited to their operations, soils, livestock and budgets. That, in turn, depends on extension and advisory services: the agronomists, veterinarians, government specialists and educators who translate research, regulations and emerging technologies into practical decisions. Yet across its many pages, the National Food Security Strategy never mentions these services.

The countries Canada points to as models take a different approach. The strategy credits the Netherlands with one of the strongest agricultural knowledge systems among wealthy countries. France connects companies, researchers and producers, while Japan pairs investment in smart agriculture with farmer training.

In each case, investment is backed by coordinated advisory systems. Canada’s strategy invests in infrastructure and technology, but says little about the people who help farmers put them to work.

What happened to Canada’s farm advisors

Canada’s advisory system has changed dramatically over the past several decades. For much of the 20^th century, provinces employed publicly funded extension agents whom farmers could call for advice. Since the 1990s, governments have gradually pulled back from this involvement.

Today, farm advice comes from a patchwork of private consultants, seed and fertilizer companies, commodity organizations, non-profits and government programs. This system can leave farmers unsure of where to turn or whose advice to trust.

In our research with Ontario farmers and agricultural advisors, we found that farmers place a high value on individualized advice from someone who understands their specific operation. They also told us the advice they get is often inconsistent, duplicated and sometimes biased, because much of it now comes from people with something to sell.

Access is another concern. The system’s attention flows toward large, innovative operations, while small and mid-sized farms get less of it. European studies found the same pattern after those countries privatized farm advice: smaller farms are often the first to lose access to reliable knowledge networks.

Canada has no national plan for farm advisory services and no shared standards, unlike the United States, which runs a coast-to-coast extension system anchored in its public universities. There is no research measuring what farm advice contributes to farm incomes, so we cannot even count what the retreat has cost. Meanwhile, the university programs that train extension professionals are shrinking.

Canada’s fragmented extension system leaves many farmers without dedicated advisors or coordinated support. The absence of a national professional body limits efforts to attract, connect and amplify the voices of the extension workers who remain.

Farmers are turning to the internet

Without a trusted advisor, farmers increasingly rely on the same sources many people use for everyday questions: they go online. Facebook, YouTube and artificial intelligence have become first stops for identifying pests, choosing feed supplements or checking regulations.

Digital platforms can provide access to information quickly, but they also introduce new risks. Our review of misinformation research shows that false and misleading claims about farming practices, inputs and climate change circulate widely through these channels. When researchers in our group tested popular AI chatbots on real Ontario livestock questions, the answers mixed useful guidance with errors.

Recent research highlights that AI adoption can create new challenges including conflicting predictions, uncertainty in decision-making and inadequate preparedness for AI-related disruptions.

There is not yet evidence that AI chatbots are causing widespread harm in agriculture, and the risks should be considered carefully rather than overstated. But a strategy that encourages technological adoption while leaving farmers to independently verify online information creates an avoidable vulnerability.

 Five fixes that would make the strategy work

This gap is fixable without rebuilding the government programs of the 1970s. It takes five practical steps.

First, federal, provincial and territorial governments should agree on common goals and quality standards for farm advice. The moment is already on the calendar: negotiations for the next five-year agricultural funding agreement begin in 2028.

Second, Canada needs to train more advisors. Universities and professional organizations require renewed support to educate and develop the specialists who will help farmers navigate technological and environmental change.

Third, Canada should create a national platform for extension professionals. Such a body could strengthen professional networks, improve co-ordination and ensure that front-line agricultural knowledge informs decisions about food security, innovation and rural development.

Fourth, governments should invest in research that measures the impact of advisory services. Canada needs evidence about which approaches improve farm incomes, productivity and resilience.

Finally, farmers and advisors need help navigating the digital world. Standards must be set for AI tools that give farm advice, and equip advisors and farmers to spot and counter agricultural misinformation.

Next to a $3-billion strategy, these measures would cost little and raise the return on every other dollar spent. New terminals, greenhouses and funds will not put more Canadian food on Canadian plates unless Canadian know-how reaches Canadian farms. A food strategy that skips the people who teach farmers how to use it is missing a step it cannot afford to miss. Policy Options

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Antisemitism on Canadian campuses “is persistent and proliferating:” report for federal government

Eighty-five percent of Jewish respondents to a Canada-wide survey said antisemitism is a serious problem on campus, according to a report on campus antisemitism and student experience done for the Government of Canada.

Survey participants provided more than 1,200 accounts of antisemitic incidents through open-ended questions.

The report, Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE), was prepared by Jack Jedwab, president and CEO, and Paul Holley, research and evaluation director – both at the Association for Canadian Studies & Metropolis Institute, along with a 17-member advisory board.

The report draws on parallel surveys of approximately 900 Jewish students and 755 students from the broader campus population.
“The findings point to a troubling and urgent conclusion: antisemitism on Canadian campuses is not episodic or peripheral – it is persistent and proliferating, and on some campuses has become a normalized and systemic feature of campus life,” the report said.

The accounts of antisemitism “reveal a university culture that is both not welcoming to Jewish students and actively and systematically trying to exclude and vilify them.”

The most prevalent themes of antisemitic incidents cited by Jewish students can be grouped into the following themes: holocaust denial and distortion; harassment and threats; normalization of antisemitic climate; pressure to disclose political views; academic/classroom bias; social exclusion; fear and emotional trauma; and a lack of institutional response.

Other findings in the CASE report include:

• 95.7 percent said they had experienced or witnessed at least one instance of antisemitism over the previous 12 months.
• 70 percent said their university does not take antisemitism seriously, and 68 percent said their campus is not a safe and inclusive place for Jewish students.
• 72 percent limit what they say in class about being Jewish, and 57 percent avoid wearing or displaying Jewish symbols because of safety concerns.
• 18 percent of incidents cited faculty members, seven percent involved teaching assistants, and seven percent involved administrators or staff.
• 36 percent encountered course content or classroom discussion they experienced as antisemitic or biased, while 34 percent said a professor introduced Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism when unrelated to the course subject.
• 45 percent encountered Holocaust denial or distortion often or sometimes, and 65 percent encountered it “at least rarely.”
• 81 percent reported hateful or discriminatory treatment of Zionists on campus often or occasionally; 71 percent reported antisemitic vandalism; 54 percent reported intimidation or threats directed at Jews; and 22 percent reported physical violence directed at Jews.
• 34 percent identified online or social media spaces as a location where incidents occurred, 33 percent identified student organizations or campus events, 25 percent classrooms or lecture halls, 23 percent nearby off-campus spaces, and nine percent in student residences and housing.

• 33 percentreported the incident they described. Among those who reported, 63 percent were dissatisfied with how it was handled, and 52 percent of non-reporters said they did not think reporting would help.

In its 2024 report on heightened antisemitism in Canada, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights found that “universities are failing to enforce their own policies to protect Jewish students on campus.”

The CASE survey of Jewish students also supports the findings of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights in its April 2026 report.

“The double standard is what has been painful for many Jewish students,” the CASE report noted. They watch as Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (offices implement policies and practices that raise awareness about racism and other forms of identity-based hate, for example, while remaining silent on antisemitism.

“Without visible and credible enforcement of campus codes of conduct, reporting systems risk becoming merely symbolic when it comes to the concerns of Jewish students,” the report said.

Since October 7, 2023, rates of antisemitism have surged around the world, shattering the sense of peace and security for Jewish communities globally.

“In Canada, university campuses have become a microcosm of a national crisis,” the report said. “Read alongside the widely documented global rise in anti-Jewish hate, including in Canada, the evidence presented [in the report] points to serious concerns about campus climate, student safety, and confidence in institutional response.”

Universities are not merely observing a social problem from the outside, the report noted. They are one of the institutions in which that problem is now being experienced, contested and judged most directly. “Most concerningly, they risk becoming the breeding ground for anti-Jewish hate to spread across generations and communities.”

The report concluded that ultimately, it is the responsibility of decision-makers to “use these findings to change our current trajectory and ensure that all Canadians can learn in safety and dignity, regardless of their identity.” Government of Canada

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Quebec needs to strengthen its innovation ecosystem to create globally competitive companies

Quebec needs to strengthen its talent advantage, unlock capital for high-growth companies, use government procurement to build Quebec companies, and build marketplace frameworks for the modern economy, according to a Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) report.

As Quebec prepares to head to the polls this October, the province stands at an important economic crossroads, CCI said.

Rising health care and infrastructure costs, slowing productivity, demographic pressures and growing global competition are placing increasing strain on Quebec's economy.

At the same time, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, digital technologies and the race for economic sovereignty are reshaping how jurisdictions compete for investment, talent and long-term growth.

Quebec is home to world-class research institutions, globally recognized expertise in artificial intelligence, and an expanding community of innovative technology companies building products used around the world, CCI noted.

“Yet despite these advantages, Quebec's innovation ecosystem lacks the policy frameworks needed to support the next generation of global innovation.”

CCI released a policy blueprint, What Quebec Innovators Need to Scale, outlining the actions the next provincial government should take to strengthen Quebec's innovation economy and help homegrown companies scale into global winners.

As political parties finalize their election platforms, they have an opportunity to adopt policies that will strengthen Quebec's long-term prosperity by ensuring the province's most innovative businesses can grow, compete and remain headquartered in Quebec, CCI said.

Drawing on extensive consultation with Quebec's leading technology CEOs and founders, CCI has identified the policy reforms that will have the greatest impact on the province's innovation economy. These recommendations focus on removing structural barriers to growth while using the policy levers available to the provincial government to build domestic capability, strengthen economic resilience and create high-quality jobs across Quebec.

The report said that as political parties develop their platforms, they should prioritize policies that:

1. Strengthen Quebec's Talent Advantage:

• Create a dedicated fast-track immigration stream for workers hired by Quebec-based scale-ups.
• Expand tuition exemptions and strengthen pathways to permanent residency for international STEM graduates.
• Modernize language policy by reducing compliance burdens on growing companies while continuing to support French language integration.

2. Unlock Capital for High-Growth Companies:

• Introduce a Quebec Innovation Venture Capital Tax Credit to mobilize private investment.
• Accelerate approval timelines for innovation tax credits and reduce administrative burden.
• Support strategic sectors through targeted incentives that encourage domestic commercialization and production.

3. Use Government Procurement to Build Quebec Companies:

• Replace lowest-cost procurement with a total-value approach that recognizes innovation, economic impact and local content.
• Create a dedicated innovation procurement office and simplify access for scaling companies.
• Modernize procurement and compliance requirements so emerging technology companies can compete for government business.

4. Build Marketplace Frameworks for the Modern Economy:

• Strengthen intellectual property retention by making commercialization incentives work for scaling companies.
• Develop a provincial digital sovereignty strategy that supports Quebec-controlled infrastructure and protects sensitive data.
• Accelerate AI commercialization by aligning tax incentives, expanding compute capacity and supporting adoption by growth-stage firms.

Quebec has already invested heavily in building one of the world's strongest innovation ecosystems, CCI said. “The next step is ensuring those investments translate into globally competitive companies that create jobs, retain intellectual property and generate long-term economic value here at home.”

This election presents an opportunity to move beyond supporting research alone and adopt policies that help Quebec companies scale, CCI said. Doing so will strengthen productivity, improve economic resilience and ensure the technologies shaping the future are built, commercialized, and owned in Quebec.

“The message from Quebec's innovators is clear: the province has the talent, ideas and ambition to lead. Now it needs a policy framework that allows homegrown companies to grow into global champions.” Council of Canadian Innovators

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Use of lithium-ion batteries for backup power in data centres comes with increased fire risk

Nearly every notable fire event in data centres in recent years has involved lithium-ion batteries in some way, according to an article by Jesse Roman, senior editor of NFPA Journal, published by the National Fire Protection Association in the U.S.

The most recent example was a blaze triggered by a battery explosion at a South Korean data centre last September. The fire halted more than 600 online government services, including tax, postal and mobile ID systems. Nearly 200 firefighters needed 10 hours to bring the blaze under control.

Batteries were also involved in a 2021 fire at a data centre in France that destroyed the entire building and 30,000 servers, and they were blamed for a pair of fires at a Virginia data centre last September.

Other notable incidents include the 2022 SK Group data centre fire in South Korea that paralyzed the KakaoTalk app, disrupting messaging, banking and transit services nationwide.

In September 2024, a Digital Realty explosion and subsequent fire in Singapore that disrupted prominent cloud customers, including Alibaba Cloud Services.

A critical part of data centres is what’s known as the uninterrupted power supply, or UPS, which is the backup power supply that ensures that no data or critical computer system goes down during an outage.

To achieve this, data centres use large generators powered by diesel or natural gas. Until recently, most facilities also had large stores of lead-acid batteries as part of the system to momentarily take on the power load during the few seconds it took for the diesel generator to spin up.

Today, almost all the lead-acid batteries have been replaced with lithium-ion energy storage in UPS systems, which has changed the fire risks significantly.

In a phenomenon known as thermal runaway, a single failing cell overheats adjacent cells, setting off a self-sustaining chain reaction that is difficult to stop. These fires release hazardous materials like hydrogen fluoride and carbon monoxide, along with intense heat.

Michael Brune, the fire marshal of Goodyear, Arizona, near Phoenix, faced a lithium-ion battery fire at a data centre a few years ago. Lithium-ion batteries in the battery room at the Microsoft South data campus in Goodyear went into thermal runaway and caused a small explosion, he said.

To reach the battery room to put out the fire, firefighters had to navigate their hoses through a high-voltage electrical room with 1,000 amp disconnects.

“They weren’t happy about doing that, and there was a lot of time spent making sure they had a safe approach. Luckily, the passive systems [in the battery room] kept the fire in check,” Brune said.

In the next data centre Microsoft built, Brune’s office required that the company move the battery room to a location that was more accessible to first responders.

Fire protection engineers say that it is common to see lithium-ion battery protection issues in facilities that transitioned from lead-acid batteries without involving the right safety experts.  Several engineers said they were busy in recent years helping clients fix those mistakes and get up to code. But new concerns are emerging over lithium-ion batteries in facilities being built now.

Almost always, lithium-ion batteries in data centres show up in one of three places: in a large shipping container-type structure outside the facility; clumped together in a conventional battery room somewhere within the data centre; or, increasingly, distributed across the entire facility within each server rack, so that each rack has its own UPS backup.

The safest arrangement is housing the battery area in a container on the exterior of a building, said Lee Kaiser, a fire protection engineer and technical lead for the engineering consulting firm ORR Protection.

However, the distributed arrangements with batteries in each server rack throughout the data halls is quickly growing in popularity, despite being the newest and least understood strategy.

Data centre owners, battery manufacturers, and even many fire protection engineers who have seen the testing data argue that decentralizing the batteries among the racks provides a key fire protection benefit: because the batteries are spread out, a potential fire or thermal runaway will not impact neighboring batteries, as it could in a dedicated battery room.

Limiting the number of batteries involved in thermal runaway also limits the quantity of flammable off-gassing that might occur, ensuring that the atmosphere remains well below the explosive limit in the often cavernous data halls.

Fire test data proving that hypothesis, however, is hard to come by, because many companies are reluctant to share data.

Engineers say the primary focus of the fire protection strategy in data centres is on property protection and continuity of operations. How best to achieve that has been in flux as data centres evolve.

Not long ago, most data centres used clean-agent gaseous fire suppression systems because they were considered safer than water for the expensive electrical equipment inside. Gas systems, however, become less effective in large, cavernous spaces; as data halls grow to extraordinary volumes, pre-action sprinkler systems have taken over as the dominant protection system, experts said.

But that may be shifting again. With GPU (graphics processing units) costs skyrocketing to several million dollars per server, engineers are seeing new facilities return to gaseous systems. Some are even exploring water mist systems, which use tiny droplets and are safer for electronics than traditional sprinklers.

In cases where designers want to distribute lithium-ion batteries throughout the data servers, however, authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) will often require high-density sprinkler systems, despite pleas from developers that such a level of protection is unnecessary.

To try and convince AHJs of this, a popular approach for engineers and building owners is to conduct a hazard mitigation analysis, which analyzes available fire testing data, battery listing data, and specific battery arrangements inside the racks to determine if a fire would promulgate, and if not, whether a lower hazard classification is justified.

Without codes or accessible data to back up those claims, though, AHJs remain wary and many require the higher level of protection. NFPA Journal

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Closed-loop liquid cooling for data centres saves on water consumption but can lead to contaminated wastewater

The use of closed-loop liquid cooling for data centres eliminates using fresh water for cooling but the resulting wastewater can be contaminated with chemicals, according to an article by Ganesh Hegde, director, data science and AI strategy at KETOS.

KETOS, which provides and AI- and robotics-powered water intelligence platform that automates real-time water quality monitoring and testing, has corporate and operations sites in California and Texas.

Training popular AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 in a U.S. data centre used about 700,000 litres of fresh water.

Researchers warn that by 2027, AI workloads could drive up to 6.6 billion cubic metres of annual water withdrawals – roughly the water a country the size of Denmark drinks each year, Hegde said.

Closed-loop liquid cooling recirculates the same fluid instead of evaporating thousands of litres each hour.

Microsoft estimates savings of more than 125 million liters per site each year while running at a fleet-wide 0.30 litres per kilowatt-hour of Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE).

But saving water is only half the story. In an earlier report on this topic, KETOS highlighted the importance of being prepared for wastewater implications of an exponential rise in the buildout of AI data centres.

Closed-loop systems rely on a cocktail of additives such as corrosion inhibitors, biocides and antifreeze blends to keep water doing its job. They stop rust, starve microbes and move heat off chips with high efficiency.

But the protection comes with a trade-off. Because the same water loops again and again, anything that does not evaporate or break down simply piles up, Hegde said.

Salts, metals and treatment chemicals keep increasing in concentration with each recycling round and frequently reach concentrations that move well beyond established limits, he said.

In Cheyenne, Wyoming in February this year, wastewater discharged into public sewers from a Meta AI data centre during "fill-and-flush" pipe cleaning introduced the rare, metal-resistant bacterium Cupriavidus gilardii into the municipal wastewater network. [1, 2]

While direct public drinking water supplies were not infiltrated, the contamination forced city officials to temporarily shut down local water reclamation plants for months of cleanup and testing because the recycled water was designated for public park irrigation and aerosol spray systems. The city subsequently revoked the contractor's discharge privileges and banned similar closed-loop flush discharges.

In George and Tennessee, heavy construction, land-clearing and industrial flushing associated with rural data centre builds have triggered severe localized water turbidity.

Operators bleed a small fraction of water each month to keep these levels in check, a practice known as blow-down. Even a two-percent monthly bleed sounds proactive, yet contaminants can still rise much faster than in open towers that take on fresh water continuously. Higher cycles push minerals out of solution, feed microbial slime, and shorten equipment life.

“The bigger worry sits outside the fence,” Hegde said. When blow-down finally leaves the site, it can carry nitrite, glycol and heavy metals at thousands of times the limits set for surface waters. “In other words, the water saved today may return tomorrow as a very different kind of liability.”

Real-world flags, according to Hegde, include:

• Unplanned drain-downs – A single 500-cubic metre loop drained for repair can send over three tonnes of nitrite to the local plant.
• Valve leaks to storm drains – Glycol concentrations above 10 percent suffocate fish faster than raw sewage.
• Regulators are reacting – Regulators are now demanding lab analysis before loop water enters sewers, and thresholds are rapidly tightening, but action remains dangerously slow. Data centres are critically under-equipped for real-time water quality monitoring, creating an imminent risk.

Most facilities test quarterly, but loop chemistry can swing in hours if oxygen sneaks in or microbes oxidize nitrite, Hegde said.

Over-dosing chemicals “just in case” burns through data centre chemical budgets and raises disposal costs. Under-dosing risks corrosion, downtime, compliance issues and multi-thousand-dollar fines.

KETOS offers real-time water quality monitoring solutions that are modular and interoperable, meaning they can easily integrate with closed-loop systems to avoid gaps in insights. Other companies offer their own technology solutions.

By monitoring in real-time, and having threshold-based alerting capabilities, water operators monitoring closed-loop systems can gain greater oversight into water composition to protect sensitive infrastructure and manage discharge compliance.

Water conservation in AI through closed-loop cooling, while beneficial, introduces complex chemical management issues, Hegde said.

These systems involve additives and metals that require careful monitoring to avoid environmental and regulatory problems. Insufficient testing leads to data deficits and increases the risk of compliance breaches.
As AI data center construction continues at an exponential rate, Hegde said KETOS encourages data center operators and downstream utilities to proactively manage risks. KETOS

THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

The Canadian Alliance for Life Sciences Training and Skills Development (CASTL) announced the appointment to its board of directors of Heather Delage, a seasoned life sciences marketing executive based in Prince Edward Island, and Maxime Pesant, vice-president, private equity and impact investing – life sciences, at the Fonds de solidarité FTQ in Montreal. CASTL also announced the appointment of Matthew J. Carlyle , president, CEO and director of adMare BioInnovations, as chairman of the board, and Ron Keefe, counsel at Stewart McKelvey and partner at Island Capital Partners, as vice-chairman of the board. CASTL

National Bank of Canada tapped a former top general who led Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan to be a strategic defence adviser, the latest move from Canada’s largest lenders as they look to expand into financing the long-neglected sector. Retired general Rick Hillier will assist with National Bank’s efforts to grow its client base in the defence and security industry, as well as among dual-use companies. Hillier will advise on trends in the defence sector and provide insights on issues affecting Canada’s resilience, security, advanced manufacturing, aerospace and defence industrial base, the bank said. Hillier served for more than 35 years in the Canadian Armed Forces and was appointed as chief of the defence staff from 2005 to 2008. During his time in the military, he led major domestic and international operations, including missions for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Globe and Mail

Dr. Maura Gillison, who forged a trailblazing career as a medical oncologist and molecular epidemiologist, died on June 21 at her childhood family home in Willougby, Ohio, northeast of Cleveland. She was 61. The cause was a rare cancer of the small intestine. In the early 2000s, Gillison was credited as the first researcher to show definitively that the human papillomavirus, or HPV – the most common sexually transmitted infection – caused the so-called oropharyngeal cancers of the throat, tonsils and base of the tongue. For almost a century, a vast majority of throat cancers were attributed to cigarette smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. Then cases of cancer of the tonsils began to rise in the 1970s and 1980s. While HPV was detected in some head and neck cancers, many researchers dismissed the findings as laboratory contamination. In 2000, the major finding of Gillison’s doctoral thesis was published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showing a strong association between HPV and head and neck cancer. In 2007, she led a team that demonstrated more conclusively that HPV caused cancer of the throat, tonsils and base of the tongue, in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine. HPV, she found, caused about 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States. Her work helped lead to a separate system for labeling stages of oropharyngeal cancer. It also led to clinical trials that assessed the efficacy of using less invasive and toxic treatments of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, instead of providing identical care to all patients with head and neck cancers. The New York Times

San Francisco, Calif.-based AI developer Anthropic hired Jacob Glick, Amazon’s former head of Canadian public policy, to serve in the same role for the AI company. Glick has more than two decades of experience in public policy, government relations and communications law. His expertise spans telecommunications, digital policy, intellectual property law and cyberlaw, supported by his background as a lawyer. Jacob Glick on LinkedIn

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce handed new responsibilities to investment banker Mark Mulroney, naming him head of the bank’s office of the CEO, and announced a transition for dealmaker Roman Dubczak. Last year, CIBC chief executive officer Harry Culham created a team of senior executives to deepen client relationships and connect the bank’s businesses. Mulroney and Dubczak, a 34-year veteran of the investment bank, are part of the group, known inside the bank as the OCEO. Culham announced that Mulroney, who joined the bank as global vice-chair in November after more than seven years as vice-chair, global banking and markets at Bank of Nova Scotia, would also become head of the OCEO, effective immediately. Dubczak, former head of global investment banking at CIBC, will move to the role of senior strategic advisor to the OCEO on November 1, and serve as an ambassador for the bank through 2027. The Globe and Mail

Lululemon Athletica Inc.’s chief AI and technology officer Ranju Das left the company after less than a year, the retailer’s latest high-profile departure as Heidi O’Neill prepares to take over as chief executive in September. O’Neill will begin as CEO and join the board effective September 8, and will be based in Vancouver at the company’s global headquarters. O'Neill is an industry veteran with four decades of both growth and turnaround experience in the athletic apparel industry. She played a central role at Nike. Das, who started at the company last September, was a member of the senior leadership team and the first executive at Lululemon to hold his title. According to his LinkedIn profile, Das’s role involved developing “responsible AI strategies” to improve efficiency and drive shareholder value. A Lululemon spokesperson confirmed Das’s departure and said the company is searching for its next technology leader. Rachel Acheson, Lululemon’s chief strategy officer, also recently left the company. Bloomberg News

The C.D. Howe Institute announced that Steve Verheul was appointed co-chair of the think tank’s International Economic Policy Council, effective immediately. Verheul, who previously served as chief negotiator for Canada during Canada-U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement negotiations and the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement negotiations, joins former deputy minister of foreign affairs Marta Morgan in leading the group of distinguished policy, academic and business leaders. Currently, Verheul serves as principal at GT&Co Executive Advisors, and is president of Steve Verheul Consulting Inc. He is also co-chair of the Coalition for North American Trade and a fellow of the Public Policy Forum. C.D. Howe Institute

Federal Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson appointed Evan Siddall as inaugural chair of the board of directors of Build Canada Homes. Siddall brings deep housing, institutional finance and governance experience as former CEO of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and vice-chair of BMO Capital Markets. Build Canada Homes is Canada's new federal agency that is building affordable homes, supporting builders with financing, and encouraging innovative building methods – using Canadian technology, workers and lumber, and sustainable building practices. With a focus primarily on non-market housing, supporting a mix of income needs, Build Canada Homes is part of a national effort to speed up housing construction, restore affordability and reduce homeless. Since its launch, Build Canada Homes has already committed to nearly 17,000 units through 17 partnerships, with more than 1,900 homes already under construction. Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada

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Western University PhD student is investigating corrosion resistance to ensure safe, long-term storage of nuclear waste

While many research projects look decades into the future, a Western University chemistry student contributed to field research with a million-year outlook.

PhD student Jessie McDonald is part of a team investigating corrosion resistance to ensure safe nuclear waste storage within stable bedrock at Canada’s proposed deep geological repository (DGR) in northwestern Ontario.

In May, McDonald travelled to the site near the Township of Ignace and the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, with staff from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a microbiologist from the University of Waterloo, and technicians from Alberta and Switzerland. There, the team retrieved two modules – steel canisters packed with bentonite clay containing embedded copper specimens – from a borehole 300 metres underground.

A Western research team helped deploy the modules underground in 2021, where they remained exposed to local microbes and groundwater. McDonald focused on gathering groundwater samples for the Waterloo team’s microbial analysis. Managing the microbes is key to ensuring the outer copper shell of the proposed storage containers doesn’t fail due to corrosion.

 “We want these containers to last a million years,” said James Noël, Western chemistry professor and McDonald’s PhD supervisor. “Copper is stable in groundwater. It’s the sulfide-producing bacteria, which thrive in low-oxygen environments like deep bedrock, that are the real threat to the containers’ long-term integrity.”

Where oxygen is scarce, these microbes metabolize sulfate instead, converting it into sulfide that causes copper corrosion. Bentonite clay packed around each container addresses this problem by suppressing microbial activity. The clay itself offers the bacteria nothing to feed on, and when the compacted clay is exposed to groundwater, it swells and traps microorganisms, immobilizing them so they can no longer feed and reproduce – or corrode copper.

Five years in, the copper samples from the modules are revealing evidence the suppression is working largely as predicted. McDonald is analyzing them in the lab at Surface Science Western, Canada’s surface analytical laboratory serving both industry and academia.

After the modules were retrieved, two new modules she’d prepared were deployed into the bedrock, for analysis by future students.

The research is narrowing in on exactly how tightly the bentonite clay needs to be packed. In a real geological repository, bentonite would be compacted into dense blocks around each container, but the rest of the shaft full of irregular rock surfaces is harder to fill to the same uniform density. Noël’s team is testing how much that density can vary before microbial suppression starts to fail.

“Our work is confirming we can go to lower compaction densities and still inhibit the microorganisms and slow the corrosion process,” Noël said.

The broader question of whether copper and bentonite are the right materials to protect used nuclear fuel and prevent its release into the environment is already settled in Noël’s mind.

“We’re confident this is the way. We know it passes the bar. Now we’re filling in the details to know by how much it exceeds the bar so we can increase our confidence in the projected lifetime of the containers,” he said.

Western is the longest-running university partner of the NWMO, a not-for-profit industry organization responsible for implementing Canada’s plan for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel.

Research at the proposed DGR site is producing data needed to support the NWMO’s eventual repository licence application. Unlike industry-funded research where results may be kept proprietary, Noël says the NWMO wants everything to be published. Colleen MacDonald in Western News

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