A Montreal laboratory specializing in thinking computers is getting a financial boost from tech giant Google.
Yoshua Bengio is the head of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, a lab at the Universite de Montreal that does cutting-edge research into artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science that teaches computers machines to think in almost human-like ways. Bengio has been working in that field since the mid-80s and is a pioneer of “deep learning,” a specific type of A.I.
“The computer can learn that knowledge, by observing, by looking at lots of data, by imitating us,” he said. “That’s what learning-based methods like deep learning are doing.”
The Institute will now be receiving $4.5 million from Google over the next three years to encourage its research.
“Google feels that this lab is special, probably unique in the world and we would like to support it,” said Google Montreal site director Shibl Mourad.
The Google investment follows the announcement of $200 million in federal money for AI research at three Montreal universities, with the hope of attracting international talent and startup entrepreneurs.
“Having all of these in the same place, I think is very, very powerful,” said Mourad. “It will allow us to continue to have this advantage.”
