Gagné said Element AI’s goal is to create a Canadian publicly listed company that brings AI capabilities to traditional industries, such as manufacturing and financial services. The financing, which comes eight months after Element AI launched, is expected to create 250 jobs in Toronto and Asia by January, CEO Jean-François Gagné said. A Montreal startup said Thursday it is getting about $135 million from Microsoft, Intel and several other investors to fund the company’s goal of becoming a leader in artificial intelligence (AI), an industry seen as becoming an increasingly important part of the Canadian economy. Gagne co-founded Element AI in October with fellow entrepreneur Nicolas Chapados, the Real Ventures fund and Yoshua Bengio, an AI pioneer and professor at the Université de Montréal. Bengio is part of a team of more than 20 professors at all of Canada’s major artificial intelligence labs that are collaborating with Element AI.

Source: thestar June 14, 2017 18:17 UTC