Greater Montréal attracts three top international AI players
In yet another clear sign that the city’s unique AI ecosystem is thriving, Montréal has attracted three AI leaders from the United Kingdom, a major development that stands to create more than 130 highly skilled jobs over the next three years. Montréal International and Investissement Québec are thrilled to announce that QuantumBlack (a McKinsey company), WinningMinds and BIOS (formerly known as CBAS) will all be opening offices in Montréal, drawn by the impressive pool of talent that has made the city a leading hub of artificial intelligence research.
The announcement was made alongside the prestigious NeurIPS conference, in the presence of the associate Minister for Transport and Minister responsible for the Metropolis and the Montréal area, Chantal Rouleau, and the Mayor of Montréal and President of the Montréal Metropolitan Community, Valérie Plante.
Montréal owes its attractiveness to a dynamic scientific community coupled with the world’s largest concentration of academic researchers in deep learning. In recent years, the work of acclaimed researchers has developed into leading-edge expertise that is increasingly attracting the world’s very top players in AI.
QuantumBlack: enhancing performance through analytics
Founded in the UK nearly a decade ago, advanced analytics firm QuantumBlack will open a Centre of Excellence at Mila (Québec Artificial Intelligence Institute). With a reputation in the life sciences, aerospace, finance, and natural resources, QuantumBlack brings together data scientists, designers and engineers to deploy cutting-edge techniques and offers a scalable approach that targets multi-year transformations.
“We’re thrilled to be adding to our global community of specialists with Montréal’s outstanding pool of talent. Montréal has quickly become a world-leading centre in AI and deep learning. I look forward to growing our footprint within Canada, collaborating with Mila and continuing to work with companies across the country by helping them move from concepts and pilots to resilient systems built into their operations. We want to help clients improve their performance for the long term.” – Jeremy Palmer, CEO, QuantumBlack
WinningMinds.ai: analysing team dynamics and demonstrated behaviours at work
WinningMinds.ai has designed an AI conversation analysis platform that analyses demonstrated skills and behaviours in real time and context to help leaders select the best talents and enhance their teams’ effectiveness. Business leaders use the platform to identify a) who is the best talent to hire or promote b) what the teams need to change in order to make good decisions collectively, during meetings.
“What differentiates our applications from the current approaches is that our AI model is designed around the latest scientific theories and technological advancements related to performance at work anchored around three pillars—science, technology and business. We work with leaders and their Human Resources to incorporate the platform into their Talent Development and Team Coaching processes and ensure productivity enhancement.” – Maria Kolitsida, CEO of WinningMinds.ai.
BIOS: harnessing AI for healthcare
BIOS (formerly known as CBAS), the leading neural engineering startup, is creating the open standard hardware and software interface between the human nervous system and AI. The mission is to enable AI-based healthcare treatments on organs and nerve systems throughout the body.
The team uses neuroscience, machine learning, software engineering, applied biomaterials, and the experience of our biotechnologists and clinicians to solve the complex problems of successfully integrating AI-based treatments into the human body. BIOS has the largest health-focused neural data sets in the world, which it is using to enable cutting-edge research and development into chronic disease treatments by academic and commercial partners. BIOS announced today that it has raised a $4.5M USD seed round which includes investment from Montréal-based Real Ventures.
“We are extremely excited to open a BIOS office in Canada. Montréal has a thriving tech ecosystem and is a significant hub for AI talent. Basing part of our research team here gives us a strategic R&D location in North America and aligns perfectly with our goal to make our datasets, tools and AI methods available to academic and business partners throughout the region.” – Emil Hewage, Co-Founder and CEO, BIOS
To learn more about Montréal and AI:
See why Montréal ranks at the top:
