Authors
Graham Dobbs
Jake Hirsch-Allen
Contributors
- Nina Rafeek Dow
- Andre Cote
- Viet Vu
- Karim Bardeesy
- Mariana Rodrigues
- Suzanne Bowness
March 2024
1
“Real Talk: How Generative AI Could Close Canada’s Productivity Gap and Reshape the Workplace—Lessons From the Innovation Economy,” The Conference Board of Canada (blog), February 20, 2024, https://www.conferenceboard.ca/product/real-talk/.
2
Amba Kak West and Sarah Myers, “The Problem With Public-Private Partnerships in AI,” Foreign Policy (blog), February 22, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/12/ai-public-private-partnerships-task-force-nairr/.
3
“2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award Laureates,” Association for Computing Machinery, accessed February 21, 2024, https://awards.acm.org/about/2018-turing.
4
“AICan: The Impact of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy,” CIFAR, accessed March 12, 2024, https://cifar.ca/ai/impact/.
5
“Built to Scale? Microcredentials Use Among Digital Professionals,” The Dais, October 21, 2023, https://dais.ca/reports/built-to-scale-microcredentials-use-among-digital-professionals/.
6
“U.S. AI Workforce.” Center for Security and Emerging Technology (blog), accessed March 17, 2024, https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/u-s-ai-workforce/.
7
Deloitte Canada, “Impact and Opportunities: Canada’s AI Ecosystem – 2023,” accessed February 21, 2024.
8
“Future of Work Report: AI at Work,” LinkedIn, accessed February 21, 2024, https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/research/future-of-work-report-ai.
9
Crunchbase. “List of Top Canada Artificial Intelligence (AI) Companies – Crunchbase Hub Profile.” Accessed February 21, 2024, https://www.crunchbase.com/hub/canada-artificial-intelligence-companies.
10
OECD, “Live Data from OECD.AI,” accessed March 17, 2024, https://oecd.ai/en/data.
11
Deloitte Canada, “Impact and Opportunities: Canada’s AI Ecosystem – 2023,” accessed February 21, 2024, https://www2.deloitte.com/ca/en/pages/deloitte-analytics/articles/impact-and-opportunities-canadas-ai-ecosystem-2023.html.
12
Scale AI, “AI at Scale,” accessed February 21 2024, https://www.scaleai.ca/aiatscale-2023/.
13
“Automation Nation? AI Adoption in Canadian Businesses,” The Dais, August 14, 2023, https://dais.ca/reports/automation-nation-ai-adoption-in-canadian-businesses/.
14
Scale AI, “AI at Scale,” Accessed February 21, 2024. https://www.scaleai.ca/aiatscale-2023/.
15
Guido Appenzeller, Matt Bornstein, and Martin Casado, “Navigating the High Cost of AI Compute,” Andreessen Horowitz, April 27, 2023, https://a16z.com/navigating-the-high-cost-of-ai-compute/.
16
Murad Hemmadi, “Cloud Giants Ride Wave of AI Enthusiasm in Canada,” The Logic, January 16, 2024, https://thelogic.co/news/cloud-giants-ride-wave-of-ai-enthusiasm-in-canada/.
17
Murad Hemmadi, “’To Compete, You Must Compute’: Powering Canada’s AI Surge,” The Logic, November 30, 2023, https://thelogic.co/news/special-report/to-compete-you-must-compute-powering-canadas-ai-surge/.
18
OECD, “A Blueprint for Building National Compute Capacity for Artificial Intelligence,” Paris: OECD, February 28, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1787/876367e3-en.
19
“AI Principles,” OECD, accessed March 18, 2024, https://oecd.ai/en/ai-principles.
20
“Stuart Russell, Karine Perset and Marko Grobelnik, “Updates to the OECD’s Definition of an AI System Explained,” OECD.AI (blog), November 29, 2023, https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-system-definition-update
21
OECD, “A Blueprint for Building National Compute Capacity for Artificial Intelligence,” OECD Digital Economy Papers, no. 350, 2023, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/876367e3-en.
22
Graphical Processing Units, or GPUs, are computer processing units that specialize in making calculations in processing and displaying computer graphics, particularly complex ones involved in video game graphics, or other 3D computer graphic applications. Because the calculations that are required to process computer graphics are numerically similar to the calculations required in machine-learning models, they have been favoured by many AI companies over traditional computer processing units, or CPUs. Tensor Processing Units (TPU), a more recent product, are computer processing units that specifically specialize in training machine learning models.
23
Jai Vipra and Sarah Myers West, ”Computational Power and AI,” AI Now Institute (blog), September 27, 2023, https://ainowinstitute.org/publication/policy/compute-and-ai.
24
OECD, “A Blueprint for Building National Compute Capacity for Artificial Intelligence,” Paris: OECD, February 28, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1787/876367e3-en.
25
PFLOPS, or petaflops, is the measure of total computing performance on the LINPACK benchmarking standard for large-scale computing infrastructure. 1 PFLOP is equivalent to 10^15 (1 Quadrillion) FLOPS.
26
To account for economic market size and population differences, we calculate a per-capita adjustment ratio, (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CA-US-GB-FR-DE-JP-IT) and GDP (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=CA-US-GB-FR-DE-JP-IT) adjustment ratio using TOP500’s supercomputer sub-list generator as of November 2023, https://www.top500.org/statistics/list/.
27
Simon Nakonechny, “AI Pioneer Yoshua Bengio Urges Canada to Build $1B Public Supercomputer, CBC News, January 29, 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bengio-asks-canada-to-build-ai-supercomputer-1.7094858.
28
Chuan Li, “OpenAI’s GPT-3 Language Model: A Technical Overview,” Lambda (blog), June 3, 2020, https://lambdalabs.com/blog/demystifying-gpt-3.
29
“Vass Bednar, “Why Canada Needs a Publicly Owned Cloud,” Financial Post, January 17, 2023, https://financialpost.com/telecom/why-canada-needs-publicly-owned-cloud.
30
Accessed by querying Canada in Top 500’s sub-list generator: https://www.top500.org/statistics/sublist/. RMax is the result of a popular benchmarking test, with higher scores indicating better. Rpeak divides the total PFlop by the number of instructions that can be issued per second, and can be interpreted as an efficiency measure.
31
Learn about AWS’s Long-Term Commitment to Virginia.” 2023. US About Amazon. June 7, 2023. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/aws/aws-commitment-to-virginia.
32
Anita Balakrishnan, “Here’s How Canada’s Semiconductor Industry Stacks up,” The Logic, July 5, 2023, https://thelogic.co/news/special-report/heres-how-canadas-semiconductor-industry-stacks-up/.
33
Murad Hemmadi, “Tenstorrent Joins Japan’s AI Compute Efforts,” The Logic, February 27, 2024, https://thelogic.co/briefing/tenstorrent-joins-japans-ai-compute-efforts/.
34
“Fact Sheet : CHIPS and Science Act Will Lower Costs, Create Jobs, Strengthen Supply Chains, and Counter China,” The White House, August 9, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/09/fact-sheet-chips-and-science-act-will-lower-costs-create-jobs-strengthen-supply-chains-and-counter-china/.
35
“About SciNet,” SciNet: Advanced Research Computing at the University of Toronto,” accessed February 21, 2024, https://www.scinethpc.ca/about-scinet/.
36
National Systems – Alliance Doc,” accessed February 21, 2024, https://docs.alliancecan.ca/wiki/National_systems#Compute_clusters/.
37
Simon Nakonechny, “AI Pioneer Yoshua Bengio Urges Canada to Build $1B Public Supercomputer,” CBC News, January 29, 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bengio-asks-canada-to-build-ai-supercomputer-1.7094858.
38
Murad Hemmadi, “’To Compete, You Must Compute’: Powering Canada’s AI Surge”, The Logic, November 30, 2023, https://thelogic.co/news/special-report/to-compete-you-must-compute-powering-canadas-ai-surge/.
39
Scale AI. “AI at Scale,” accessed February 21, 2024, https://www.scaleai.ca/aiatscale-2023/.
40
Will Knight, “OpenAI’s CEO Says the Age of Giant AI Models Is Already Over, WIRED, April 17, 2023, https://www.wired.com/story/openai-ceo-sam-altman-the-age-of-giant-ai-models-is-already-over/.
41
“FTC Launches Inquiry into Generative AI Investments and Partnerships,” Federal Trade Commission, January 25, 2024, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/ftc-launches-inquiry-generative-ai-investments-partnerships.
42
Tom Krazit, “Do Big Cloud Companies Control AI Startups?” Runtime, January 26, 2024, https://www.runtime.news/do-big-cloud-companies-control-ai-startups/.
43
Murad Hemmadi, “’To Compete, You Must Compute’: Powering Canada’s AI Surge,” The Logic, November 30, 2023, https://thelogic.co/news/special-report/to-compete-you-must-compute-powering-canadas-ai-surge/.
44
“Data Residency in Azure,” Microsoft Azure,” accessed March 14, 2024, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/explore/global-infrastructure/data-residency/.
45
“Microsoft Expands Digital Footprint in Quebec with USD $500 million Investment in Infrastructure and Skilling Initiatives,” Microsoft News Center Canada,” November 22, 2023, https://news.microsoft.com/en-ca/2023/11/22/microsoft-expands-digital-footprint-in-quebec-with-usd500-million-investment-in-infrastructure-and-skilling-initiatives/.
46
“Cloud locations – Regions & Zones,” Google Cloud, accessed March 14, 2024, https://cloud.google.com/about/locations.
47
Murad Hemmadi,, “Cloud Giants Ride Wave of AI Enthusiasm in Canada,” The Logic. January 16, 2024, https://thelogic.co/news/cloud-giants-ride-wave-of-ai-enthusiasm-in-canada/.
48
“Canadian Cloud Hosting Services,” Amazon Web Services, accessed March 14, 2024, https://aws.amazon.com/local/canada/.
49
“Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, July 20, 2022, https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ai-strategy/en/pan-canadian-artificial-intelligence-strategy.
50
Tetsushi Kajimoto and Sam Nussey, “Japan to Spend $13 Bln for Chip Industry Support in Extra Budget, Reuters, November 10, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/japan-allocate-13-bln-chip-industry-support-extra-budget-2023-11-10/.
51
“Fact Sheet: CHIPS and Science Act Will Lower Costs, Create Jobs, Strengthen Supply Chains, and Counter China,” The White House, August 9, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/09/fact-sheet-chips-and-science-act-will-lower-costs-create-jobs-strengthen-supply-chains-and-counter-china/.
52
“AI Innovation Package to Support Artificial Intelligence Startups and SMEs Policy,” OECD, accessed February 28, 2024, https://oecd.ai/en/dashboards/policy-initiatives/http://aipo.oecd.org/2021-data-policyInitiatives-27588.
53
European Commission, “Communication on Boosting Startups and Innovation in Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence,” European Commission: Shaping Europe’s Digital Future, January 24, 2024, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/communication-boosting-startups-and-innovation-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence.
54
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55
“National Cloud Strategy: Launch of the Industrial Plan to Support the Sector,”Enterprises.Gouv.Fr., accessed February 8, 2024, https://www.entreprises.gouv.fr/fr/actualites/numerique/strategie-nationale-cloud-lancement-du-plan-industriel-de-soutien-la-filiere.
56
International Trade Administration, “United Kingdom Artificial Intelligence Market 2023,” March 29, 2023, https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/united-kingdom-artificial-intelligence-market-2023.
57
“Host Sites for the next Wave of UK Government AI Infrastructure,” UK Research and Innovation, January 24, 2024, https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/host-sites-for-the-next-wave-of-uk-government-ai-infrastructure/.
58
“BMBF Action Plan ‘ Artificial Intelligence,’” Bundesministerium Für Bildung Und Forschung, November 7, 2023, https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/de/forschung/digitale-wirtschaft-und-gesellschaft/kuenstliche-intelligenz/ki-aktionsplan.html.
59
Converted in March 2024 CAD dollars, original value is based on announcement year.
60
Girish Sastry et al., “Computing Power and the Governance of Artificial Intelligence,” Arxiv, February 13, 2024, arXiv:2402.08797.
61
In 2023, 180 Canadian AI firms received over $2.5 billion in venture capital funding, according to Crunchbase and the OECD; estimates are that over half of funding for genAI companies goes to AIC costs, https://oecd.ai/en/data?selectedArea=investments-in-ai-and-data&selectedVisualization=vc-investments-in-generative-ai-by-country.
62
Canada, Global Affairs, “Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Concerning Cooperation over Scientific Research and Innovation,” January 30, 2024, https://www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca/tcs-sdc/innovators-innovateurs/mou_science_innovation_protocole_entente.aspx?lang=eng.
63
Brian Caulfield, “Canada Partners With NVIDIA to Supercharge Computing Power,” NVIDIA (blog), February 5, 2024, https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/canada/.
64
“OpenAI’s Altman in Talks to Raise Funds for Chips, AI Initiative – WSJ,” Reuters, February 9, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/technology/openais-altman-talks-raise-funds-chips-ai-initiative-wsj-2024-02-09/.
65
Anton Shilov, “Legendary Chip Architect Jim Keller Responds to Sam Altman’s Plan to Raise $7 Trillion to Make AI Chips — ‘I Can Do It for Less than $1 Trillion,’” Tom’s Hardware, February 17, 2024, https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/jim-keller-responds-to-sam-altmans-plan-to-raise-dollar7-billion-to-make-ai-chips.
66
Anton Shilov, “Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says $7 Trillion Isn’t Needed for AI — Cites 1 Million-Fold Improvement in AI Performance in the Last Ten Years,” Tom’s Hardware, February 14, 2024, https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-says-dollar7-trillion-isnt-needed-for-ai-cites-1-million-fold-improvement-in-ai-performance-in-the-last-ten-years.
67
While Nvidia holds a dominant share of the AIC hardware market share, AMD, Intel and potentially Apple are catching up in AIC performance. See: https://www.top500.org/statistics/list/. As of November 2023, Nvidia co-processors hold over 25 percent of the Top 500 supercomputers list, compared to less than three percent for AMD and two percent for Intel.
68
Murad Hemmadi, “G7 Nations Exploring Cooperating on AI Compute: Champagne,” The Logic, March 15, 2024.
69
“Olaf – Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3, AMD EPYC 9334 32C 2.7GHz, NVIDIA H100, Infiniband NDR 400” TOP500, accessed February 21, 2024, https://www.top500.org/system/180180/.
70
In real terms, the cost of NVIDIA H100 graphics processing cards is approximately $45,000, capable of performing 34 TFLOPS on the LINPACK benchmark. NVIDIA. “NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU Datasheet,” accessed February 21, 2024, https://resources.nvidia.com/en-us-tensor-core/nvidia-tensor-core-gpu-datasheet.
71
“NVIDIA H100 – GPU Computing Processor – NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core – 80 GB – 900-21010-0000-000 – Graphic Cards,” CDW.ca, accessed February 21, 2024, https://www.cdw.ca/product/nvidia-h100-gpu-computing-processor-nvidia-h100-tensor-core-80-gb/7354651.
72
Assuming domestic infrastructure has the PCIe slot and power capacity to add over 3,600 PCIE-based Nvidia H100 accelerator cards.
73
“NVIDIA H100 – GPU Computing Processor,” SHI.ca, accessed February 21, 2024, https://www.shi.ca/Product/45671009/NVIDIA-H100-GPU-computing-processor.
74
Simon Nakonechny, “AI Pioneer Yoshua Bengio Urges Canada to Build $1B Public Supercomputer,” CBC News, January 29, 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bengio-asks-canada-to-build-ai-supercomputer-1.7094858.
75
“Submission on the Proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act,” The Dais, November 13, 2023, https://dais.ca/reports/submission-on-the-proposed-artificial-intelligence-and-data-act/.
76
As noted in a recent article arguing for more Canadian AIC capacity, Yoshua Bengio would like to see that class of machine built in Canada, funded by governments, so public entities have the digital firepower to keep up with the private tech giants they’ll be tasked with monitoring or regulating. “I think government will need to understand at some point, hopefully as soon as possible, that it’s important for [them] to have that muscle,” said Bengio. Simon Nakonechny, “AI Pioneer Yoshua Bengio Urges Canada to Build $1B Public Supercomputer,” CBC News, January 29, 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bengio-asks-canada-to-build-ai-supercomputer-1.7094858.
77
As measured by performance as a function of kilowatts needed to power public-use AIC infrastructure, Canada’s PFLOPS per kilowatt is 0.007 compared to the United States, measured at 0.016 PFLOPS per kilowatt. This implies Canada’s current public-use AIC infrastructure is less than half as energy efficient as the United States’ larger-scale public-use computing infrastructure.
78
Nour Abdelaal, Adams Aghmien and Andre Cote, “Clean Connection: How Digitization Can Support Canada’s Path to Net-Zero,” The Dais, June 23, 2023, https://dais.ca/reports/clean-connection-how-digitization-can-support-canadas-path-to-net-zero/.
79
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80
“Climate Comparison: Canada / United States,” WorldData.info, accessed March 12, 2024, https://www.worlddata.info/climate-comparison.php?r1=canada&r2=usa.
81
Murad Hemmadi, “Canada and U.K. Are Allies, Not Rivals, on AI: Champagne and Donelan,” The Logic, January 31, 2024, https://thelogic.co/news/canada-and-u-k-are-allies-not-rivals-on-ai-champagne-and-donelan/.