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December 2018/January 2019 www.fDiIntelligence.com
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CANADAMAKESGLOBAL ICTWAVES
62Canada is a global leader in ICT, boasting diverse specialisms and a large appetite for industry-specificinvestment and event hosting, and the government is further backing superclusters.
ANICTSTRONGHOLD
64With international names such as Amazon and Huawei setting up in Ottawa, the Canadian capital iscarving out a name for itself as a magnet for ICT and a frontrunner when it comes to 5G research.
TORONTOONTHEUP
65Toronto’s 40,000 science graduates a year feed into what has become North America’s fastest growingjobs market for technology, providing expertise across a wide array of tech areas.
MONTREAL’SBRAINGAIN
66Boasting some of the leading global experts in AI, plus a wealth of software companies and gamesstudios, Montreal is developing into a major technology hub that has attracted the likes of Samsung,
Google and IBM.
INTELLIGENTLEARNING
67Edmonton has become a globally recognised hub for machine learning and AI research, thanks in largepart to its world-class universities. fDi looks at how the city became so popular with tech companies.
SPREADFARANDWIDE
68Canada’s ICT capabilities are not solely concentrated in a few key cities. Several destinations across thecountry host thriving tech clusters.
Photograph:Eva
Blue.CourtesyofTourism
eMontréal
C anada’s most renownedtech hub, Toronto, wasranked sixth in the world in
Savills’ Tech Cities 2017 report, and12th in KPMG’s Global TechnologyInnovation 2018. However, talent isevenly spread across Canada, witha variety of world-class sub-sectorsin Vancouver, Montréal, Ottawa,Edmonton,Waterloo, Calgary,Québec City andWinnipeg.
From the invention of thetelephone to IMAX cinemas, Canada has beenat the forefront of technological innovationsince its foundation 151 years ago. The firstsettler communities were forced to innovate,co-operate and share knowledge in order tosurvive, according to Virginie De Visscher,director of business development, economicsectors, at Business Events Canada (a divisionof Destination Canada, Canada’s federal tour-ismmarketing agency).
Digital nationFast-forward to 2018, and Canada’s 39,000 ICTcompanies provide almost 600,000 jobs, turn-ing over C$181bn ($137bn) in annual revenueand C$73bn in GDP contribution, accordingto Statistics Canada. In short, Canadians aretech savvy. Ranked as the OECD’s ‘most edu-cated’ talent pool, generally speaking, 88.5%of Canadians use the internet, with an aver-age of 34 hours spent online weekly among16 to 24 year olds, according to MediaTechnology Monitor.
Canadian ICT companies – among themCGI, Blackberry and Celestica – account for anaverage of 53% of Canada’s total ICT revenue.Foreign companies make up the remainder,and include among their ranks the world’slargest multinationals, such as Samsung,Apple, Amazon, Facebook andMicrosoft.
Canada is the world’s 11th top destina-tion for greenfield FDI in ICT, with $10bninvested between 2014 and 2017, and the
The place to be: in 2018 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Toronto equal seventh in its list of the world’s most liveable cities
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CANADA IS A GLOBAL LEADERIN ICT, BOASTING DIVERSESPECIALISMS AND A LARGEAPPETITE FOR INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC INVESTMENT ANDEVENT HOSTING, AND THEGOVERNMENT IS FURTHERBACKING SUPERCLUSTERS,WRITES SEBASTIAN SHEHADI
Canadamakesglobal ICTwaves
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eighth largest source of FDI in the sector,according to greenfield investment monitorfDi Markets. Montreal and Toronto rankedfirst and third, respectively, for FDI Strategyin fDi’s Digital Economies of the Future2018/19 ranking.
To boost these strengths, the Trudeaugovernment launched the ‘superclusterinitiative’ earlier in 2018, pumping C$950minto priority industry clusters, two of whichare in ICT – digital media and artificial intelli-gence (AI). Collaboration between govern-ment, industry and academia in Canada,especially in ICT, is strong.
Diverse specialismsToronto is the country’s largest ICT huband a North American leader alongside SanFrancisco and New York. It is home to one ofthe largest clusters of mobile application com-panies in North America and has the world’shighest concentration of AI start-ups. Montréalis a global hub for AI research and deep learn-ing, as well as digital sound andmedia,commstech and data centres. It boasts 250researchers at Université de Montréal andMcGill University – the largest number ofresearchers in the country.
Meanwhile, Vancouver is emerging as adigital technology supercluster characterisedby digital media and gaming, virtual reality(VR), cryptocurrency, cloud computing andSoftware as a Service (SaaS). The ElectronicArts campus in Vancouver employs 1300 peo-ple. Capital city Ottawa is another tech hub.With almost one-tenth of its workforce in ICT,Ottawa is the most technology-intensive cityin Canada, according to local newspaper theOttawa Citizen. The capital is a leader in autono-mous vehicles, communications technology,digital media, fintech, govtech, 5G, photonicsand SaaS.
Edmonton is amajor innovation hub forAI, bioinformatics and human-machine inter-action. As well as offering state-of-the artresearch into bionic limbs, Edmonton boastsone of the world’s leading 4Dmedical simula-tion labs. Waterloo, a powerhouse for ICT inno-vation, is home to Canada’s leading Internet ofThings cluster and the world’s highest concen-tration of mathematical and computer sciencetalent. It hosts software giants BlackBerry, D2L,Google and OpenText, andmore than 70 auto-motive innovation leaders.
Much of Calgary’s ICT work is gearedtowards its oil and gas industry, and the cityhas Canada’s highest concentration of start-ups per capita. Its strengths lie in agri-technol-ogy, cleantech, geospatial, communicationstechnology, data analytics, digital media andVR. Québec City offers a thriving optics-pho-tonics industry and Canada’s largest nationaldefence research centre. It is a world-class cen-tre for geospatial companies, software integra-tors and designers, and is home to companiessuch as CGI, Oracle andMicrosoft.
Last but not least, Winnipeg nurtures acommunity of small andmedium-sized ICTenterprises, with strengths inmachine learn-ing, data collection, robotics and interactivedigital media/video game development. Thecity also houses data centres for many of thelargest Canadian companies and, recently,gaming giant Ubisoft opened an office there.
Benefits beyond tourismThough Canada’s stunning scenery isrecognised throughout the world, making ita popular tourist destination, this image hasmeant that its technological prowess has beensomewhat overlooked by investors and eventsdecisionmakers, says Ms De Visscher. “We arebreaking that perception. We have big neigh-bours, but the developments beingmadewithin our world-leading subfields are chang-ing the discussion. We’re seeing huge talentfrom the US into Canada. Our work environ-ment is different, in terms of diversity, triplehelix, and going from incubation tomarket.”
In 2018, the Economist IntelligenceUnit ranked Calgary, Vancouver and Torontoamong the world’s top 10most liveable cities.Moreover, Vancouver and Toronto ranked 15thand 16th, respectively, as top cities in theworld to start a tech business, accordingto Startup Genome.
This is borne out by the growing number ofinternational ICT events being held in Canada,such theWorld Summit AI North America, theInternational Joint Conference on ArtificialIntelligence, Collision, and the InternationalCybersecurity & Intelligence Conference.
Tech professionals from around theworld will, once again, flock to the annualC2 Montreal that marries Cirque du Soleilwith technology, so to speak, according toMs De Visscher. “[In 2017] they bio-printeda 3D nose right in front of me,” she says.“Attracting outside business to meet inCanada means another step towardspotential investment. We’re not tryingto be everything to everyone. We’re specificto our strengths and are we matchingthem with those who are interested.” ■
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2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
NUMBEROF FOREIGNGREENFIELD INVESTMENTSIN CANADA’S ICT ANDELECTRONICS SECTORS
Source: fDiMarkets
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WITH INTERNATIONAL NAMES SUCH AS AMAZON AND HUAWEISETTING UP IN OTTAWA, THE CANADIAN CAPITAL IS CARVING OUTA NAME FOR ITSELF AS A MAGNET FOR ICT AND A FRONTRUNNERWHEN IT COMES TO 5G RESEARCH, AS JASONMITCHELL REPORTS
O ttawa has established itselfas an internationally recog-nised centre for R&D in ICT,
with more than 90% of Canada’s tele-communications-related researchhappening in the city.
Some of the world’s leadingwireless telecoms network equip-ment makers – including Ciena,Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei– have centres located in Ottawa.A considerable proportion of theresearch is dedicated to innovationaround 5G networks.
Tech surge“Over the past five years, Ottawa hasseen a surge in the technology econ-omy,” says Blair Patacairk, vice-president, global expansion, atInvest Ottawa, the city’s inwardinvestment agency. “With the likesof Amazon setting up a fulfilmentcentre here in Ottawa, coupled withhome-grown companies such asShopify, the city has become thecentre of attention with the rightmix for a vibrant ecosystem.
“Invest Ottawa’s global expan-sion team has been very targeted onmarkets of interest that line up withour sector strengths. The strategy ispaying off in spades and we areattracting great companies to ourregion, such as Syntronic from
Sweden and Aurrigo from the UK.”By April 2018, Swedish design
house Syntronic had a total of 200employees in Ottawa. The companyhas moved to a new 2200-square-metre building in which it hasinvested C$6.2m ($4.6m) of itsown money, plus C$600,000 fromthe province of Ontario. This willcreate 45 new jobs in Ottawa overthe next five years.
Also, in April, Aurrigo, the UK’sleading self-driving vehicle special-ist, opened a new sales and technicaloffice in the centre of Ottawa and isnow seeking academic and industrypartners to support the testing anddevelopment of its innovative auton-omous vehicle technology. The firmhas already enlisted research leadersat Carleton University in Ottawa towork on trials on its campus.
“Invest Ottawa has been very sup-portive and has assisted us in findinga suitable location in the heart of thecity and introducing us to possiblepartners,” says Aurrigo CEO DavidKeene. “It has really made the pro-cess a lot easier and we are delightedthat we can now start turning thediscussions into actual trials – mov-ing autonomous vehicles being usedin Canada one step closer.”
Ottawa, Canada’s national capitalwith a population of 970,000, has
77,000 people employed in the ICTindustry. Some 980 companies in thesector are located in the city.
Doing the researchOttawa’s ICT cluster has ahost of R&D facilities, including theCommunications Research Centre,a federally funded centre of excel-lence specialising in wireless tele-coms; Canadian PhotonicsFabrication Centre, the only pure-play optical fabrication centre inNorth America; the Centre ofExcellence in Next GenerationNetworks; David Florida Laboratory,the Canadian Space Agency’s space-craft assembly, integration and test-ing centre; and Defence Researchand Development Canada, the coun-try’s leader in defence and securityscience and technology.
It is also home to other incuba-tors and research centres, includingthe National Research Council ofCanada and Canada’s AdvancedResearch and Innovation Network.
Ottawa is cultivating world-classexpertise in technology fields suchas cybersecurity, connected cars andautonomous vehicles, artificial intel-ligence, machine learning, weara-bles and the Internet of Things.
A large number of annualconferences in the ICT industrytake place in the city, includingConference on Security andDefence (in February 2019); IoT613Conference (in early 2019); Canasa,Security Canada Expo (in May 2019);and CAV Canada, AutonomousVehicles (September 2019). ■
Satellite office: the David Florida Laboratory, the Canadian Space Agency’s spacecraft assembly, integration and testing centre, is a key part of Ottawa’s ICT cluster
www.fDiIntelligence.com December 2018/January 2019
An ICTstronghold
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Torontoontheup
Switched on: Toronto’s tech sector is growing faster than its counterparts in New York and San Francisco
TORONTO’S 40,000 SCIENCEGRADUATES A YEAR FEED INTOWHAT HAS BECOME NORTH AMERICA’SFASTEST GROWING JOBS MARKET FORTECHNOLOGY, PROVIDING EXPERTISEACROSS A WIDE ARRAY OF TECHAREAS. JASONMITCHELL REPORTS
UNIVERSITYOF TORONTOISONEOF THEWORLD’SLEADINGAI CENTRES, SOTHAT SECTOR IS IMPORTANT
T oronto had the fastest growingtech jobsmarket in NorthAmerica in 2017, seeing 28,900
new jobs created in the sector. Thecity – Canada’s biggest, with a popula-tion of about 2.8million – saw thetotal number of employees in theindustry jump to 241,000 at the endof 2017, a 52%hike during the preced-ing five years, according to real estategroup CBRE. Tech firms accounted formore than one-third of the demandfor office space in central Toronto.
The city’s tech sector is growingfaster than its equivalents in NewYork and San Francisco. On somemeasures, up to 400,000 people areemployed in the ICT sector in thecity. About 14,000 companies fromthe industry are located in the cityand the sector’s total GDP amountsto C$52bn ($39bn).
Northern SiliconValley“Toronto is attracting tech firmsfromall around theworld,” saysSunil Sharma,managing director ofTechstars Toronto, an accelerator pro-gramme. “Canada generally is seen asa good country inwhich to start up atech company. There is an incredibleconcentration of computer science inthe city. Fintech and technology relat-
ing to healthcare are also important.”The city, known as the ‘Silicon Valleyof theNorth’, is strong in a number oftech areas, including artificial intelli-gence andmachine learning; fintech;blockchain; enterprise software; vir-tual and augmented reality; gaming;andhardware related to the con-sumer and food tech sectors.
“Toronto is very strong inall areas of technology,” saysJanet Bannister, a partner at RealVentures, a leading early-stage inves-tor located in the city. “University ofToronto is one of the world’s leadingAI centres, so that sector is impor-tant. Toronto is the banking capitalof the country with the five biggestbanks [in the country] based here.That has led to the rise of one ofNorth America’s principal fintechhubs. Business-to-business tech isalso significant. There are manyhealth tech-related companies, asthe city has a strong hospital andmedical school network.”
The top five internationalICT firms all have their Canadianheadquarters in Toronto: Alphabet(Google), Cisco Systems Canada, HPCanada, IBM Canada andMicrosoftCanada. It was the only city in thecountry tomake the shortlist forAmazon’s second headquarters.
Incubating talentToronto hasmore than 40,000graduates in the science, technology,engineering andmathematics sub-jects every year and has about 65accelerators and incubators andmore than 4100 tech start-ups. It ishome to the IBM Innovation Space,as well as the IBM Blockchain GlobalData Centre, which uses IBM Z, anew system designed to encryptlarge volumes of data.
At 56,000 squaremetres, MetroToronto Convention Centre is thecountry’s largest convention centre,while Enercare Centre, at 93,000squaremetres, is its largest exhibi-tion space. Events companies –including Business Events Toronto,Toronto Global and the TorontoLeader’s Circle – organise a widerange of tech-related events andconferences in the city. In May 2019,Collision, the fastest growing techconference in North America, willtake place in the city, and is expectedto pull in up to 25,000 attendees.
Meanwhile, in terms of access,Toronto’s Pearson InternationalAirport is the fifth most connectedairport in the world (and the sec-ond most connected in NorthAmerica after Chicago O’Hare),according to OAG, the air travelintelligence company. ■
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BOASTING SOME OF THELEADING GLOBAL EXPERTSIN AI, PLUS A WEALTH OFSOFTWARE COMPANIES ANDGAMES STUDIOS, MONTREALIS DEVELOPING INTO A MAJORTECHNOLOGY HUB THAT HASATTRACTED THE LIKES OFSAMSUNG, GOOGLE AND IBM.JASONMITCHELL REPORTS
Montreal’sbraingain
MONTREALHAS BECOMEAMAJORGLOBALHUBFOR THEGAMING INDUSTRY. THE CITYHAS A LOTOF ENERGY AND IS VERY COSMOPOLITAN
Montreal, Canada’s secondlargest city, is becoming aglobal hub for research into
artificial intelligence (AI), partlybecause some of the world’s leadingexperts on ‘deep learning’ – amachine learning technique– are located there.
Yoshua Bengio, a professor atUniversity of Montreal Institute forLearning Algorithms, is one of theworld’s leading experts on deeplearning and set up Element AI– a company that seeks to transformAI research into real-world businessapplications – in the city in 2016.
Greater Montreal now has 250researchers focused on AI and 9000students on university programmesrelated to the field.
Attracting the experts“The main people who inventeddeep learning are based inMontreal,” says Claude Theoret,president of Nexalogy, a start-upthat is creating AI applicationsfor social media networks. “Thatreally helped the AI ecosystem toexplode in the city. It is one of thebiggest university cities in NorthAmerica and that has contributedto a highly creative and innovative
business environment.“It is a post-industrial city and
has rent controls, making it one ofthe cheapest cities in Canada inwhich to live. It also has some of thelowest university tuition fee rates inthe country and one of the highestemployment rates. All of these fac-tors make it an attractive place inwhich to live and have been essen-tial for the tech start-up ecosystemto take off.”
InOctober, Samsung opened anAIcentre inMontreal dedicated to R&Dof core AI technologies, includingmachine learning, language, visionand othermulti-modal interactions.
“This new research centre willhelpmake AImore accessible righthere in Montreal,” Marc Garneau,Canada’s transport minister, said atthe time of the opening. “It will openthe door for collaboration and growopportunities for our universitiesand our businesses.”
Top for tech jobsGreater Montreal – with 4millioninhabitants – enjoys the highest con-centration of tech sector jobs of anyCanadian city: 107,500 employees, or8% of the total workforce. There are5250 tech companies and the sectorhas a total GDP of C$11.6bn ($8.7bn).The city has 11 universities and insti-tutions of higher education and 60vocational colleges.
This year, Greater Montreal wonthe award for fDi Magazine’s best FDIStrategy in the Digital Economies ofthe Future ranking. Montreal is amajor player in software and IT ser-vices and leading companies –among themCGI, IBM, Google, SAP,Accenture, Fujitsu, Autodesk, TataCommunications, and DassaultSystems – have centres there.
The city hasmore than 30incubators and accelerators, includ-ing FounderFuel, TandemLaunch, XRConcordia andUbisoft Virtual Reality.
Overall, the city is home to 150games studios and 12,000 gamesdevelopers. Eric Kucharsky, directorof business development, ICT,Europe foreign investments, atMontreal International, the city’seconomic development agency, says:“As well as AI, Montreal has becomeamajor global hub for the gamingindustry. Ubisoft Entertainment, thegaming company, has 3500 employ-ees in the city and three large build-ings. The city has a lot of energy andis very cosmopolitan. Its vibe is simi-lar to that of Berlin.”
In 2018, Montreal was the tophost city in North America for inter-national association events, accord-ing to the Union of InternationalAssociations. Themain events in thetech sector include C2MTL, StartupFest, Movin’On, Effects MTL, MIGS,HUBMontréal, Canada FintechForum, and NeurIPS. ■
Shining reputation: Montreal is a major player in software and IT services
Photograph:Eva
Blue.CourtesyofTourism
eMontréal
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Intelligent learning
DeepMind’s Edmonton choice: from left: Richard Sutton, Michael Bowling and Patrick Pilarski
EDMONTON HAS BECOME A GLOBALLYRECOGNISED HUB FOR MACHINELEARNING AND AI RESEARCH, THANKSIN LARGE PART TO ITS WORLD-CLASSUNIVERSITIES. JASONMITCHELLLOOKS AT HOW THE CITY BECAMESO POPULAR WITH TECH COMPANIES
WEARE SOLVING SOMEOF THEWORLD’SMOSTIMPORTANT PROBLEMSRIGHTHERE IN EDMONTON
In Edmonton – Canada’s fifth big-gest city – a world-leading artifi-cial intelligence (AI) R&D cluster
is fast emerging in the heart of thecity. Its innovation corridor stretchesfromNorthern Alberta Institute ofTechnology through the downtowncore to the University of Alberta.
The city – with a population ofjust over 1.3million – hasmore thanC$5.5bn ($4.17bn) in developmenthappening in the downtown area,more than any othermajor marketin North America. This is centredaround a new professional sportsand entertainment complex.
AI hubEdmonton is a hub of AI andmachine learning in Canada.Alberta Machine Intelligence, aresearch institute associated withthe University of Alberta, featuresin the country’s national strategy forthis type of research. The university’scomputer science department is alsointernationally recognised.
The university is second inthe world for academic papers andresearch on AI andmachine learn-ing, according to CSRanking.org,an international ranking of com-puter science research institutions.
In 2017, DeepMind, a Britishcompany at the forefront of machinelearning, chose Edmonton for itsfirst laboratory outside the UK. Itwanted to recruit three key research-
ers from the University of Alberta:Richard Sutton, Patrick Pilarski andMichael Bowling. However, they didnot want to leave the city or theteams they had built up at theuniversity, so DeepMind came toEdmonton. The firm now has 15researchers at its downtown lab.
Furthermore, in 2016, RoyalBank of Canada’s R&D lab, BorealisAI, also decided to establish a labin Edmonton, dedicated to researchin ‘adversarial machine learning’.“Great minds attract great minds,”says Mario Nascimento, professorand chair of the University ofAlberta’s department of computingscience. “As a global leader in AIresearch, the university’s manyexcellent professors and researchersproduce leading-edge scientific dis-coveries and play a vital role inattracting and retaining top AI tal-ent and companies to Edmonton.”
Glen Vanstone, vice-presidentof Enterprise Edmonton atEdmonton Economic DevelopmentCorporation (EEDC), the city’sinward development agency, says:“The city is becoming recognisedinternationally for the excellenceof its research on ‘reinforcementlearning’. It is becoming a gravitywell for talent and companies in theAI field. Important research in bio-technology and health sciences, and
in clean technology and renewa-bles, is also taking place here.”
Innovative spiritEdmonton has sixmajor public ter-tiary institutions and a talent poolof more than 100,000 students witha significant number of graduatesin engineering, machine learning,medical sciences and law. It is hometo 1300 companies in the ICT sector,employing about 19,000 people.
InOctober, EEDC and Epic RealtyPartners, a real estate group, agreedto launch an innovationhub in down-townEdmonton. This is expected to bea key entry point andhome for tech-nology-enabled start-ups and scale-upcompanies, and aims to bringtogether entrepreneurs,mentors,investors, talent and business expertsin an environment designed to sup-port the growth of tech start-ups.
“We are solving some of theworld’smost important problemsright here in Edmonton,” says CheryllWatson, vice-president of InnovateEdmonton at EEDC. “The innovationhubwould increase visibility to theincredible work happening at StartupEdmonton and TEC Edmonton.”
Twomajor tech conferences willtake place here in 2019: Blockchainand Technology Symposium inMarch and SingularityU CanadaSummit in April.■
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Photo:John
Ulan
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supported by Canada’s R&Dand cor-porate investment tax rates, the low-est among theG7 countries.
CalgaryTomany, Calgary in Alberta is synon-ymous with the oil and gas industry,yet its thriving technology and inno-vation sector contains the country’shighest concentration of entrepre-neurs and start-ups per capita.
“Calgary’s rapidly growingcleantech sector is a natural evolu-tion from its position as a global hubfor the energy industry. Our decadesof experience driving innovation inand around energy forms a strongbackbone for our future as a clean-tech hub,” says Dr Terry Rock, chiefexecutive of Calgary Technologies.
The IBMNatural ResourcesSolution centre uses AI to developsolutions for the oil and gas industry.
The province of Alberta alsospecialises in Canada’s C$20bn($15.1bn) geospatial industry, host-ing 22% of the country’s geospatialcompanies. The city’s other ICT spe-cialisations are in agri-tech, big data,cleantech, communications technol-ogy, digital media, geospatial,Industry 4.0 and virtual reality.
QuébecCityQuébec City’s crown jewel is itsoptics-photonics industry, home tothe world-leading National OpticsInstitute that has generatedmore
than 30 spin-off companies, anddeveloped technology such asthe portable 3D camera for theInternational Space Station.
The city is home to Canada’s larg-est national defence research centre,Valcartier Research Centre, andanother 64 research centres, clustersand institutes in various ICT subsec-tors, such as AI, digital media, geo-spatial, interactive entertainmentand Software as a Service (SaaS).
WinnipegAlthoughWinnipeg inManitoba isone of Canada’s lesser known cities,internationally speaking, it is set tohave the fastest growingmetropolitaneconomy amongCanada’swestern cit-ies in 2018, behind onlyMontréal,according to CanadaNewsWire.
The city hosts internationalgiants such as Ubisoft, Microsoftand AmazonWeb Services, as wellas locally grown success stories. Onesuch is Sightline Innovation, one ofCanada’s largest machine learningcompanies that provides AI-basedsolutions for Industry 4.0 to theinsurance, healthcare, manufactur-ing and agriculture sectors.
Winnipeg’s location and low-costenergy has alsomade it an attractivelocation for data centres. The cityalso specialises in communicationstechnology, cybersecurity, digitalmedia, fintech, machine learningand AI, and SaaS.■
Vision quest: Québec City’s National Optics Institute has generated more than 30 spin-off companies
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Spread farandwide
W hile Toronto, Montréal andVancouver garner themostinternational attention,
Canadian tech talent is widespreadamong the country’s other cities,such as Edmonton, Ottawa,Waterloo, Calgary, Québec City andWinnipeg. The tech sectors in theselocations offer tens of thousands offull-time jobs, with each city boast-ing specialities and subsectors.
WaterlooWaterloo, in Ontario, has theworld’s highest concentration ofmathematical and computer sciencetalent. It boasts the Institute forQuantum Computing, the Institutefor Theoretical Physics, and anInternet of Thingsmanufacturingspace (Catalyst137), each the largestof their type on the planet.
The city also specialises in artifi-cial intelligence (AI), autotech, bigdata, cybersecurity, machine learn-ing and robotics. Leading CanadianICT companies OpenText and D2Lare based there, alongside largeforeign firms such as Google.
The Toronto-Waterloo innovationcorridor ranks 16th among the top20 global start-up ecosystems, accord-ing to theGlobal Startup EcosystemReport 2018. Incubator hubCommunitech is one example, boast-ing 1266 technologymembers includ-ing start-ups, SMEs and large corpora-tions. Communities such as these are
CANADA’S ICT CAPABILITIES ARE NOT SOLELY CONCENTRATED IN A FEW KEY CITIES. SEVERAL DESTINATIONSACROSS THE COUNTRY HOST THRIVING TECH CLUSTERS, AS SEBASTIAN SHEHADI REPORTS