Microsoft Ventures invests in Montreal AI expertise

Microsoft Venture's new start-up fund has made its first investment in Element AI, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence start-up affiliated with researchers at McGill Univ, Univ of Montreal and Univ of Toronto. Founded by Dr Yoshua Bengio and serial entrepreneurs Jean-François Gagné and Nicolas Chapados, Element AI will use the undisclosed Microsoft investment to achieve scale and generate new AI technologies through incubation and spinoffs. Other major firms such as Alphabet Inc/Google, Beijing-based Baidu and Uber have recently made investments in Canadian AI expertise. On the research front, three Montreal-based universities (McGill Univ, Univ of Montreal and Polytechnique Montreal received a total of $211 million for AI-related programs through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (R$, September 22/16)….