The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the provinces, the feds and corporations are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the artificial intelligence sector in a bid to keep the country competitive. The Globe's Sean Silcoff writes that on Tuesday, Quebec committed $100-million to support Montreal's flourishing AI sector after last week's $125-million commitment by the Canadian government to fund free-standing AI research institutes in each of Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton as part of a Canadawide strategy. The goal is: to keep AI talent in Canada; to attract the world's best researchers; to train legions of AI practitioners to fill a chronic shortage; to foster commercialization of AI-driven start-ups; and to work with corporate Canada to improve operations by using AI. One of those is Toronto's Vector Institute, which is affiliated with University of Toronto machine-learning expert Geoffrey Hinton. Vector will receive about $40-million from Ottawa, $50-million from Ontario and $80-million from 31 corporate donors, including Shopify, the Big Five banks, Loblaw, Magna, Thomson Reuters and Air Canada. Google is also providing $5-million and opening a research lab in Toronto.