The Canadian government today announced that B.C. businesses and not-for-profit corporations will be able to apply for some of the $32.2 million in funding earmarked for the province that it is providing through its new Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative (RAII).
Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan) plans to start welcoming applications on Nov. 18 and will administer the program with money expected to be provided within five years.
PacifiCan in a news release described the money it plans to provide as being "funding" and "investments." It clarified to BIV that "for businesses, RAII will offer interest-free, repayable funding." It added that "in most cases, RAII funding to not-for-profit organizations will be non-repayable."
PacifiCan said in an email that it will not take equity positions in any businesses or not-for-profit organizations funded under RAII.
A higher proportion of British Columbian businesses plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) than do counterparts in the rest of Canada, according to Pacifican.
Canadian regional development agencies are delivering $200 million through the RAII, with the $32.2 million being B.C.'s share.
PacifiCan said it plans to prioritize RAII funding for projects that have strong economic benefits and "bring positive outcomes for human health, the environment, and/or economic resilience and productivity across a wide range of sectors."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in April announced that his government would invest $2.4 billion to expand Canada’s AI sector. The $200-million RAII initiative is being funded out of that $2.4 billion.
About $2 billion of that money is expected to go into a fund that will aim to provide access to improve computing capabilities and provide technical infrastructure, according to the government.
All of this money is welcomed by executives who are embarking on AI-related projects, although compared with the investments being made by large U.S. technology companies, the amount might be considered peanuts.
“If we do things the way we normally do things, it will be like spreading peanut butter across the whole country,” Fraser Health Authority CEO Victoria Lee said about Canada's planned funding at an AI conference in Vancouver in June.
“And $2.4 billion isn’t very much money. It is as much as [OpenAI CEO] Sam Altman would spend on one tiny, little project.”
AI was BIV's 2023 newsmaker of the year for the B.C. business community because of its rapid rise from nascency to being a technology that almost all executives are either using or fear that they should be using to protect their ventures’ futures.
Many B.C. companies have received venture funding to help them improve AI offerings.
Last year, BC Tech’s AI C-Council founding chair Rob Goehring told BIV that dozens of B.C. companies were using AI as a core part of their business, while hundreds were using AI in operations. Those numbers are likely much higher today.
