Announced today within the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada is set to receive $85M of the newly announced federally-funded $2B Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy.
This groundbreaking $2B investment is aimed at strengthening domestic AI compute capacity to position the country to emerge as a global leader in artificial intelligence and is crucial to advancing research and innovation across various sectors from health care to the environment.
The $85M investment, starting in 2025, and lasting to 2027, is directly related to the important work undertaken by the Alliance of building public supercomputing infrastructure ($1B of the total $2B) to meet the growing and ever-evolving needs of researchers, government, and industry. Sovereign public AI infrastructure is also crucial for ensuring Canada's competitive edge and sovereignty in the global AI space.
“The Alliance supports the Federal Government’s investment in, and commitment to, Canada’s national digital computing and research infrastructure, essential for accelerating Canada’s discovery and innovation work being conducted by researchers and businesses across our vast country. These funds will provide Canadian researchers with enhanced access to compute capacity, empowering them to conduct groundbreaking research” said Digital Research Alliance of Canada CEO, George Ross.
Next steps for the Alliance
Through this special funding alongside our federal funding model, the Alliance brings together partners coast to coast to set the strategy and champion critical digital research infrastructure solutions needed for tech and innovation advancement.
The Alliance aims to lead the nation in seizing this incredible opportunity to unlock our digital potential for Canada’s researchers, innovators and economy.
Our strategic focus and mission is to support researchers with the infrastructure they need to drive innovation and maintain Canada’s leadership in AI while addressing the pressing needs across the nation for greater compute capacity, future-proofing our systems, and building out Canada’s high-calibre technical workforce through specialized and integrated training programs.
Learn more about the $2B Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy which also covers mobilizing private sector investment (up to $700 million) and an AI Compute Access Fund to support the purchase of AI compute resources by Canadian innovators and businesses (up to $300 million) in areas like life sciences, energy, and advanced manufacturing.