Canada launches CA$1 billion AI strategy to break free from US tech dominance

Canada wants to make its own AI, break free from US bots

We're a month shy of the 250th anniversary of the United States' independence, and another close ally has decided to celebrate by declaring independence from American tech, AI in particular. The Canadian government on Thursday announced a new "AI for All" national strategy that will see Ottawa direct CA$1 billion ($719 million) toward expanding AI adoption and supporting Canada's AI sector. The plan includes CA$500 million through an AI financing program to help small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI tools, and another CA$500 million to expand support for Canadian AI companies through the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Prime Minister Mark Carney made clear one of the initiative's central goals: ensuring Canadians can build and use AI on Canadian terms. "AI is here. The question is whether it will improve the lives of all Canadians or benefit only a few," Carney said in a press release. "AI can ... make a small business more competitive, if it is governed by Canadian values with a clear goal of improving the lives of all Canadians." In other words, we don't want your OpenAIs and your Anthropics north of the border, especially when American tech comes with so much political baggage lately. Yet another ally pursues AI sovereignty While the Canadian government frontloaded its target of $200 billion in economic growth, a litany of new AI-related jobs, building trust in domestic AI, and other five-year goals to boost the country's economy, one of the most noticeable parts of the announcement, and the plan itself, is its insistence on Canadian sovereignty. "We will build the foundations of sovereign Canadian AI," the announcement declared. That includes "compute, cloud, connectivity, data, and talent," the government said, "so Canadian researchers, businesses, and public institutions can build and adopt AI on Canadian terms." A major part of that sovereignty push will see Canada "strengthen multinational partnerships with trusted allies" as part of the Sovereign Technology Alliance Ottawa entered into with Germany this past February. "Canada will leverage 12 international partnerships," the announcement continued, as part of its sovereignty push, which ought to be read less as an independent effort, and more like one in which a bunch of countries partner up to get rid of American tech influence. As mentioned elsewhere in the announcement, Canada has signed AI and tech partnerships with Germany, Australia, the EU, Finland, India, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, the UAE, and the UK since March 2025 - shortly after Trump took office for his second term and started getting belligerent with Canada and other allies, coincidentally or not. One can't help but be reminded of the EU's recent tech sovereignty push, which gained steam earlier this year when the EU realized relying on cloud technology provided by American companies under influence from an unreliable, mercurial US government liable to cut them off for petty revenge might not be the best idea. Unfortunately, that hasn't been easy for the EU, as its sovereignty push has been complicated by the fact that, even if you make your own software, you're still stuck dealing with dominant US chipmakers for your hardware. Canada and its Sovereign Technology Alliance partners will have a tough road ahead of them if they intend to reduce their reliance on US tech companies. We reached out to the government in Ottawa, but it didn't respond before publication. ®

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warns foreign AI platforms can be used against Canadians

TORONTO (AP) -- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned Thursday that foreign artificial intelligence platforms could be used against Canadians. Carney said the defining technology of our era is here and said Canada is too dependent on foreign suppliers. He made the remarks while unveiling his government's strategy on AI. Carney warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier his year that global hegemons like the United States have used economic integration to bully smaller countries. He noted Thursday that most of the data used in AI goes across the border. As with other forms of economic integration like supply chains, Carney said AI could be weaponized against Canadians. "That creates real risks that foreign entities could access Canadian data, deploy AI products that shape Canadian lives without reflecting our values," Carney said. "And tilt the playing field against Canadian firms -- while Canada lacks the leverage to push back or the ability to control." The government's strategy notes "AI is a game of scale that is dominated by hegemons and hyperscalers" and said this "poses a significant security and economic challenge as countries around the globe risk becoming subordinate or reliant on them." The strategy talks about Canada helping lead other middle powers or like-minded countries in navigating the new era. "A coalition of aligned democracies, who pool research, talent, compute and procurement power, would offer a credible alternative to the dominant market actors that increasingly define the global AI landscape," the document says. Carney said his government will introduce legislation to better protect data and privacy. He also said Canada will build a world-leading public AI supercomputer. "Canadian researchers train models on foreign cloud platforms. Canadian companies store sensitive data in foreign jurisdictions. Government operations rely on infrastructure Canada does not own," the strategy says. It says the federal government will address these risks by "building its key sovereign capabilities domestically whenever possible, while partnering with trusted allies or buying existing market solutions when appropriate." The strategy said Canada has "a major adoption gap." The prime minister said his government will offer artificial intelligence training to Canadians in schools and community centers through a literacy initiative. He said free AI learning kits, including courses, "will help Canadians to identify bias and misinformation -- and give them the AI tools to learn and help with their careers." Carney said globally, his country ranks near the bottom of countries in AI training, literacy and trust. He said only 12% of Canadian businesses are using AI and adoption is even lower among small and medium-sized businesses.

Wary of Americans, Canada Bets on Its Own A.I.

The country on Thursday released a national artificial intelligence strategy that focuses on building its sovereign capability and protecting consumers. Canada, a global hub for artificial intelligence research and home to some pioneers of the technology, on Thursday announced plans to position itself as a leader among middle powers vying to build sovereign A.I. capability. These plans, unveiled as part of the country's national A.I. strategy, commit to injecting millions of dollars into research facilities; to introducing relevant privacy and consumer protection legislation; to building a public A.I. supercomputer; and to creating free programs to learn A.I. When it comes to tech policy, Canada has tended to ride the tailwinds of the United States. But amid continuing political and trade tensions, the United States, its former ally, is notably absent from Canada's vision for its A.I. future. "Prosperity and sovereignty in the age of A.I. belong to nations that can build, adopt and govern A.I. on their own terms," Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters on Thursday from a downtown Toronto hospital that is leading health technology innovations. Canada has reoriented itself to align with like-minded middle powers such as Australia, France and Germany in its A.I. ambitions, just as it has done with its military, trade and energy infrastructure projects. "Canadian A.I. adoption will be prudent, pragmatic and pro-worker," Mr. Carney said. Still, he emphasized that the conversation with the United States was not adversarial, and that companies based there would continue to play an important role in Canada's technology ecosystem. Mr. Carney pointed to the example of Anthropic, which has granted the Canadian government access to its latest A.I. model, Mythos. The company has said the model is so powerful that it is too dangerous to release publicly. Public-safety threats spurred by the use of A.I. chatbots have become a worry for Canadians after a mass shooting in February at a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, that killed eight people. Eight months before the attack, the shooter's account with OpenAI had been flagged internally for content that violated the company's policy and was suspended. Though there was discussion within the company about raising these concerns with Canadian law enforcement, this did not happen. Open AI has since apologized and revisited its policies for elevating safety concerns. The government plans to advance legislation focused on protecting children's information and on safeguarding personal privacy rights against "deepfakes" and surveillance pricing, the practice of adjusting the prices people see based on personal data about them. Canada also wants to mirror the approach it has take with defense sovereignty -- procuring locally and building domestic capacity before shopping elsewhere -- with its digital sovereignty. Mr. Carney emphasized that other core Canadian values, like the French language, its Indigenous heritage and its history, particularly as the training ground of three "godfathers" of A.I. -- Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and Richard Sutton -- will be reinforced in the government's shaping of the technology's uses. The computer scientists are known for their breakthroughs in laying the mathematical and theoretical groundwork for modern A.I. The government has set an ambitious target to create 250,000 jobs in the A.I. space in the next five years. The goal is likely to face major hurdles because of Canada's perennial "brain drain" problem, in which the country trains highly skilled workers who then depart, usually for the United States, in search of lower taxes, higher wages and more opportunity. "Canada helped make modern A.I. possible, and Canadians should be proud of that," Aidan Gomez, chief executive of Cohere, a Canadian A.I. company, said in a statement. "Canada has seen too many big ideas grow elsewhere," Mr. Gomez added. "A.I. should be where that changes."

Canada joins EU in push for tech sovereignty with new AI strategy

A new national AI strategy puts sovereignty front and centre as Canada moves to reduce its dependence on foreign cloud and AI providers. On Wednesday, the European Commission launched its Technological Sovereignty Package, introducing new legislation to loosen the grip of US Big Tech on European cloud and AI infrastructure. Now Canada has followed suit with its own 'AI for All' strategy, built around six pillars and with the explicit goal of ensuring Canadians can "adopt, build, and govern AI on their own terms". "We will strengthen Canadian sovereignty at a time when it is being deeply challenged," the strategy states, in a clear reference to tense relations with its neighbours under the Trump administration. "Too much Canadian innovation is captured and scaled elsewhere," the strategy states. "In an era where prosperity, resilience, and sovereignty increasingly depend on the ability to build and govern AI on national terms, these are vulnerabilities Canada cannot leave unaddressed." The strategy published yesterday (4 June) points to some of those "vulnerabilities" that Canada needs to address. Sovereign compute capacity is described as "nascent", with Canadian organisations remaining heavily reliant on foreign providers for the infrastructure underpinning economic, scientific and public-sector activity. GPU chip fabrication sits "almost entirely offshore". And only 12pc of Canadian businesses currently use AI, well behind Nordic counterparts, it says, where adoption runs between 29 and 42pc. The strategy's six pillars cover: * safety and democracy protections * AI skills and literacy for all Canadians * accelerated adoption across the economy * building sovereign compute infrastructure * scaling Canadian AI champions * forging trusted international alliances. On infrastructure, the Canadian government is committing to building a world-leading supercomputer by 2031 and growing sovereign cloud capacity to reduce dependence on foreign providers, echoing the EU's CADA (Cloud and AI Development Act) proposals published on Wednesday. Canada aims to increase business AI adoption from 12pc today to 60pc by 2034, create up to 250,000 new jobs through AI adoption by 2031, and create nearly $200bn in GDP gains from labour productivity improvements. Priority sectors for investment will be: health and life sciences, energy and natural resources, transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing and robotics. The strategy flags that Canada has already signed 20 new economic and defence international partnerships in the past year, 11 of which advance AI cooperation. The Canadian government says it will build a strategic multilateral alliance to move "from reliance to resilience" in key AI and technology capabilities. For children and citizens, the strategy commits to modernising privacy legislation, introducing online safety laws, and providing free AI literacy training to 1m entry-level post-secondary students. Canada's strategy and the EU's sovereignty package this week are clear signs that the race to reduce dependence on a small number of US technology giants is now a mainstream policy priority on both sides of the Atlantic. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Warns Foreign AI Platforms Can Be Used Against Canadians

TORONTO (AP) -- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned Thursday that foreign artificial intelligence platforms could be used against Canadians. Carney said the defining technology of our era is here and said Canada is too dependent on foreign suppliers. He made the remarks while unveiling his government's strategy on AI. Carney warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier his year that global hegemons like the United States have used economic integration to bully smaller countries. He noted Thursday that most of the data used in AI goes across the border. As with other forms of economic integration like supply chains, Carney said AI could be weaponized against Canadians. "That creates real risks that foreign entities could access Canadian data, deploy AI products that shape Canadian lives without reflecting our values," Carney said. "And tilt the playing field against Canadian firms -- while Canada lacks the leverage to push back or the ability to control." The government's strategy notes "AI is a game of scale that is dominated by hegemons and hyperscalers" and said this "poses a significant security and economic challenge as countries around the globe risk becoming subordinate or reliant on them." The strategy talks about Canada helping lead other middle powers or like-minded countries in navigating the new era. "A coalition of aligned democracies, who pool research, talent, compute and procurement power, would offer a credible alternative to the dominant market actors that increasingly define the global AI landscape," the document says. Carney said his government will introduce legislation to better protect data and privacy. He also said Canada will build a world-leading public AI supercomputer. "Canadian researchers train models on foreign cloud platforms. Canadian companies store sensitive data in foreign jurisdictions. Government operations rely on infrastructure Canada does not own," the strategy says. It says the federal government will address these risks by "building its key sovereign capabilities domestically whenever possible, while partnering with trusted allies or buying existing market solutions when appropriate." The strategy said Canada has "a major adoption gap." The prime minister said his government will offer artificial intelligence training to Canadians in schools and community centers through a literacy initiative. He said free AI learning kits, including courses, "will help Canadians to identify bias and misinformation -- and give them the AI tools to learn and help with their careers." Carney said globally, his country ranks near the bottom of countries in AI training, literacy and trust. He said only 12% of Canadian businesses are using AI and adoption is even lower among small and medium-sized businesses.