Three big U.S. tech companies control the vast majority of Canada’s publicly-available cloud infrastructure, says a new report released ahead of the government’s national AI strategy, which is expected to include measures targeting AI sovereignty.
I’m waiting to see what comes as a final version of the national AI strategy, but what my feeling for a while is that what we’re seeing with AI in Canada is very reminiscent of what we’ve seen in O&G, but even more lopsided. Lots of US ownership, raw material (both mineral and data) coming from Canada but with value-added processes owned by US companies, revenue that will flow south, and lock-in to their systems.
We don’t have them in parliament, but we do have them. I’m not a big fan of Evan Solomon as the minister of AI, but the AI advisory council has some people who are very knowledgeable and have been deep in the AI space for years. So, there is ready access to great knowledge and intelligence. That said, Solomon’s approach is very market-driven and focused on entrepreneurship and business growth, and that’s no-doubt why he’s in the roll. The approach from the top of government down has been to go market-driven.
I’m waiting to see what comes as a final version of the national AI strategy, but what my feeling for a while is that what we’re seeing with AI in Canada is very reminiscent of what we’ve seen in O&G, but even more lopsided. Lots of US ownership, raw material (both mineral and data) coming from Canada but with value-added processes owned by US companies, revenue that will flow south, and lock-in to their systems.
Hopefully that will not happen this time around, oh who am I kidding it is going to happen.
We have zero PhDs in Parliament, 7% STEM degrees. No one understands AI so any strategy will be written by lobbyists.
We don’t have them in parliament, but we do have them. I’m not a big fan of Evan Solomon as the minister of AI, but the AI advisory council has some people who are very knowledgeable and have been deep in the AI space for years. So, there is ready access to great knowledge and intelligence. That said, Solomon’s approach is very market-driven and focused on entrepreneurship and business growth, and that’s no-doubt why he’s in the roll. The approach from the top of government down has been to go market-driven.