The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, Oct. 8, edition that Canada must focus on how entrepreneurs, researchers and businesses can utilize artificial intelligence infrastructure to develop the next generation of AI companies locally.
The Globe's guest columnists Sami Kibria and Abdullah Snobar write that without enough access to AI compute, Canadian innovation will be built here but scaled elsewhere because the infrastructure to do it at home doesn't exist.
Our default response to growing AI demand has been simply to build bigger datacentres, and we all know the adage: Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. Canada needs more capacity, but capacity is not the only factor that decides who leads the AI economy -- access is.
Meta's investment in Alberta is a significant endorsement for Canada. However, it's worth noting that while the datacentre will support Meta's AI efforts, it won't enhance compute power for Canadian businesses and researchers to develop their own AI projects.
Anthropic is reportedly eyeing Alberta for a datacentre too. Whether it's Meta or Anthropic setting up shop in Alberta, it's not a given that any Calgary-based start-up close by will get to access the compute capabilities.
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