Amii CEO Cam Linke: Thoughts on Amii's role in Alberta's economic recovery

Amii was founded to enable Alberta to lead the world in artificial intelligence and machine learning – through conducting world-leading research and translating scientific advancements into economic impact.

Since we launched in 2018 as one of three institutes in the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, we’ve leveraged our eighteen-year history of research excellence at the University of Alberta to catalyze and scale growth in Alberta’s AI and industry landscapes.

In doing so, we’ve accelerated digital transformation in businesses, helping them gain access to new talent, grow and upskill their existing teams, and moved them along the spectrum of AI adoption – towards creating a more resilient, competitive and diversified Alberta.

It’s thanks in large part to crucial investments made by the Government of Alberta, by Alberta Innovates, and by CIFAR that we can do what we do.

Here at Amii, we cultivate talented individuals.

Since 2018, we’ve added 12 primary researchers to our team of Fellows at the University of Alberta, including 10 established researchers who relocated to Alberta to be with our team, and to be at the forefront of innovation and continue to build our best-in-class talent pipeline.

Our researchers train some of the most talented students in the world. Our alumni have gone on to raise over half $1 billion dollars in venture capital, and companies we have worked with over the last two years have raised over $100 million in venture funding.

Across industries, companies from around the world are speeding up innovation by accessing our homegrown talent. US-based Funnel AI is building their Canadian AI arm here, with Amii, through accessing our Internship Program and our talented Machine Learning Lead program. The world’s most innovative AI companies like DeepMind have set up here to be able to access our talent.

We use our research to help some of the most pressing challenges. Our researchers have joined in the global fight against Covid, enabling drug discovery, creating a virtual data lab, detecting and monitoring illness, and tracking things like mental health during the pandemic.

We’ve lent our advanced research expertise to the Roche Data Science Coalition, a partnership between public and private organizations, which has developed over 100 digital solutions to pandemic-related challenges. It’s created a central repository for population datasets, and deepened the relationship between Alberta and international stakeholders.

Over the past two years, we’ve ramped up efforts to drive AI adoption throughout industry sectors such as energy, health, agriculture, and supply chain. Recently, the announcement of our REMI program, funded by the Alberta government, is helping to further enhance our competitiveness in the Energy and Agriculture industries by applying machine learning to reduce emissions.

We’ve partnered with companies like Imperial Oil, Shell Scotford, NetEnergy, Climate Corp, and Willowglen Systems to help them gain new technologies and advance their organizational efforts. We’ve also worked with local startups like DrugBank, Medo AI, and SAM Desk that are applying the latest research and innovations to commercial technologies.

As just one example, working with Okaki, a Calgary-based health analytics company, we’ve helped them move from exploring uses of AI to implementing machine learning to help doctors better predict and prevent opioid overdoses.

These are some of the many companies we’ve worked with here, and we continue to scale that effort and accelerate the success of these companies, and create more jobs and opportunities.

We’re training and upskilling Alberta’s workforce for the roles and jobs of the future.

In just two years, we’ve seen over 80,000 people around the world take our specializations online, and that same world-leading education is being taught here to upskill our workforce, where in the last nine months, we’ve had over 100% increase in the number of enrollments in our ML Technician program, and we’ve trained over 1,400 employees in our corporate and individual training programs.

Already, Alberta is a world leader in the science of AI – and we’re solidifying our place as leaders in the business of AI.

Here in Alberta, technology is big business, and AI is at the centre of it - creating value and creating competitive advantage. With the continued support of the Government of Alberta and Alberta Innovates, we’re excited to continue our role in leading the province’s economic recovery.

Read about and watch the September 18 Government of Alberta announcement here.