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AI and ML in Edmonton

Daveography

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Excited to hear DeepMind is expanding into downtown.

'It's really fun to see': BioWare, DeepMind part of tech surge in downtown Edmonton's office market
Downtown Edmonton’s real estate market has bounced back as the oil and gas industry recovers from its recent slump, but the glow could fade in coming months.

The office vacancy rate at the end of June dropped to 12.5 per cent, down from 15.3 per cent in 2017 and far below the crushing 26 per cent vacancy rate in downtown Calgary, figures from Avison Young real estate show.

That’s the lowest figure since the pre-recession 8.8 per cent vacancy rate in 2015.

One big reason for the improvement is the growing presence of high-tech operations in the core, Edmonton Avison Young managing director Cory Wosnack said.

“Technology companies, software companies and gaming development companies, they are having a big positive impact on the office market,” he said.

“It’s really fun to see growth in this sector. For the last few years we have seen significant (energy-related) downsizing in the engineering sector … Edmonton is now starting to prove out diversification to become a tech hub of sorts in the downtown core.”

Wosnack has seen a half-dozen outfits in this field take downtown space in the last six months, and expects another half-dozen deals in the next few months.

The action includes a planned expansion by Google’s DeepMind, the world-leading artificial intelligence firm that opened its first research lab outside London in Edmonton last year, and game maker Bioware’s move to the Epcor Tower from the south side set for next spring.

https://edmontonjournal.com/busines...-boosting-growth-in-vibrant-downtown-edmonton
 
DeepMind has officially announced their presence in Edmonton. DeepMind is a branch of Google who specializes in artificial intelligence, they moved in 2 years ago but haven't had a visual presence in the city . I'm excited that the Edmonton core is becoming more of a hub to large tec company's branches
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DeepMind has officially announced their presence in Edmonton. DeepMind is a branch of Google who specializes in artificial intelligence, they moved in 2 years ago but haven't had a visual presence in the city . I'm excited that the Edmonton core is becoming more of a hub to large tec company's branches
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This is great news and yes it's nice to see the growth in this sector. This is our future.
 
This is great news and yes it's nice to see the growth in this sector. This is our future.

It's definitely a part of it, but Alberta also needs to look beyond tech alone.

Still, @Daveography pointed to an interesting article recently about the tech sector's growth in Edmonton:
Edmonton has had quite a bit of success bringing in tech firms in the years since. In 2018, Amazon announced it would build a warehouse in the area that costs $120 million and will employ over 600 workers. The city’s tech labour pool rose 17 per cent over five years, reaching 25,200 staff by 2019, fuelled by companies like Jobber, Canadian Tire and Google’s Deepmind.

While that’s small compared to Toronto’s 250,000 tech workers, data compiled by CBRE suggest Edmonton is punching well above its weight. The city now has more tech employees than Waterloo and its workers make more on average. Its tech talent pool is also growing at a faster rate than Halifax, Winnipeg, or Ottawa.

Original Article
 
Branched off discussions of DeepMind into this new thread to talk specifically about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning developments taking place here in Edmonton. This is a subject of renewed interest to me as my new gig is heavily involved in this area of technology.

edmonton.ai has lots of great information on the local ecosystem:

Some local companies working specifically in this space:

The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (amii), also based here:
 
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AltaML and AI4Society (UofA) are included in the winners of the 2020 Responsible AI Awards:

Start-up Leader Award:
AltaML for their Responsible AI Design work in financial, health, and social services that balanced innovation with building responsible AI systems.

Academic Leader Award:
AI4Society, at the University of Alberta for their work on the redevelopment of the Responsible AI Design Assistant.

 

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