Artificial intelligence, once relegated to the realm of science fiction, is now found in everything from translation services to virtual assistants to video games. As a result of its research, Bengio says the institute has attracted interest from "most of the major IT companies,'' some of which have also provided funding. Google gets on boardNow, tech giant Google is jumping in, investing $4.5 million over three years to support the institute's research, as well as opening an AI research group at its Montreal office. He says its a hopeful sign that former Montrealer Hugo Larochelle will be returning to the city to head up Google's new research group. "We'd like to see more of that, and we'd like to attract people who aren't Canadians to Montreal,'' he said.

Source: CBC News November 21, 2016 14:06 UTC