The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that one of the country's most accomplished artificial intelligence researchers is launching a new non-profit lab with $4.8-million in financing from Huawei Canada, after the federal government restricted the Chinese company's ability to work with publicly funded universities. The Globe's Joe Castaldo writes that Richard Sutton, a professor at the University of Alberta and a pioneer in the field of reinforcement learning, says the OpenMind Research Institute will finance researchers following the Alberta Plan, a 12-step guide he co-authored last year that lays out a framework for pursuing the development of AI agents capable of human-level intelligence. OpenMind will be based in Edmonton and kicks off Friday with a weekend retreat in Banff. Mr. Sutton's goal is to "understand intelligence," as he puts it, a necessary pursuit if we are to build truly intelligent agents. Mr. Sutton's work at the university is one avenue to pursue that goal, as is his recent post with Keen Technologies, a U.S. AI start-up founded by former Meta Platforms consulting chief technology officer John Carmack. Keen raised $20-million last year, including from Shopify founder Tobi Lutke.