The Vector Institute is a private, non-profit

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

research institute in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

focusing primarily on machine learning and deep learning research. As of 2023, it consists of 143 faculty members and affiliates — 38 of which are CIFAR AI chairs — 57 postdoctoral fellows, and 502 students. Along with the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, the Vector Institute is affiliated with faculty from universities across

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, as well as

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

and

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

. Along with Montreal's Mila and Alberta's Amii, the Vector Institute is a member of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

History

Vector was established by

Brendan Frey Brendan John Frey FRSC (born 29 August 1968) is a Canadian computer scientist, entrepreneur, and engineer. He is Founder and CEO of Deep Genomics, Cofounder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Professor of Engineering and Med ...

Geoffrey Hinton Geoffrey Everest Hinton (born 1947) is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, and cognitive psychologist known for his work on artificial neural networks, which earned him the title "the Godfather of AI". Hinton is Univer ...

, Raquel Urtasun in 2017 with the objectives of retaining and recruiting researchers in Toronto and encouraging companies to establish labs in the city. On January 2, 2018, Garth Gibson became Vector's first president and CEO, and in 2023, was replaced by Tony Gaffney. The institute was housed in the

MaRS Discovery District MaRS Discovery District, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity, provides direct support for startups, builds communities of innovators and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world� ...

and, in 2024, moved to the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Center.

Funding

At the end of its founding, the Vector Institute received a combined total of $200 million CAD from private and public sectors. The sources of its private sector funding include, among others,

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

, and

Shopify Shopify Inc., stylized as ''shopify'', headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, operates an e-commerce platform for retail point-of-sale systems that offers payments, marketing, shipping, inventory management, transaction management, and customer eng ...

. In 2019, the

Government of Ontario The Government of Ontario () is the body responsible for the administration of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. The term ''Government of Ontario'' refers specifically to the executive—political Minister ...

cut its funding of CIFAR and the Vector Institute by $24 million CAD. As part of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence strategy, the Vector Institute, Mila, and Amii received another $60 million CAD in 2021 from the

Government of Canada The Government of Canada (), formally His Majesty's Government (), is the body responsible for the federation, federal administration of Canada. The term ''Government of Canada'' refers specifically to the executive, which includes Minister of t ...

Operations

The institute supports foundational and applied AI research, and mitigates brain drain in Canada. Their research priorities are: *

Machine Learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

Deep Learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

* AI for Science * AI for Health *

Trustworthy AI Trustworthy AI refers to artificial intelligence systems designed and deployed to be transparent, robust and respectful of data privacy. Trustworthy AI makes use of a number of Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), including homomorphic encrypti ...

Foundation Models In artificial intelligence (AI), a foundation model (FM), also known as large X model (LxM), is a machine learning or deep learning model trained on vast datasets so that it can be applied across a wide range of use cases.Competition and Markets ...

One of the goals of the institute is to support AI adoption in industries. They have helped reduce energy consumption at

Telus Telus may refer to: * Telus Corporation, a Canadian publicly traded holding company ** Telus Communications, a telecommunications company ** Telus Digital, a technology company ** Telus Health, a health technology provider ** Telus Mobility T ...

, built recommendation systems with Wahi, and partnered with

Kids Help Phone Kids Help Phone () is a Canadian charitable organization that provides online and telephone counselling and volunteer-led, text-based support in English and French to youth across Canada. Kids Help Phone also provides information on how to acc ...

to build tools that help guide councillors during conversations with children. They have built open source tools to monitor clinical models in production. The institute has given out $2 million CAD in masters scholarships, valued at $17,500 each.

Faculty

As of June 2024, Vector's research is led by Chief Scientific Advisor

and Research Director Daniel Roy. Other faculty members include, among many others, Alán Aspuru-Guzik,

, Gillian Hadfield, and Sheila McIlraith.

Board of Directors

As of March 31, 2023, the Vector Institute's board of directors consists of: *

Ed Clark Edward E. Clark (born May 4, 1930) is an American lawyer and politician who ran for governor of California in 1978, and for president of the United States as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1980 presidential election. Background C ...

* Miyo Yamashita *

Charmaine Dean Charmaine B. Dean (born 1958) is a statistician from Trinidad. She is the vice president for research at the University of Waterloo, a professor of statistical and actuarial sciences at both Waterloo and Western University, the former president o ...

* Janet Ecker * Chaviva Hosek * Ashley Casovan * Michael Serbinis * Melissa Chee * Melanie Woodin * Shauneen Bruder

References

{{coord missing, Ontario Research institutes in Canada Artificial intelligence laboratories University of Toronto Science and technology in Toronto 2017 establishments in Ontario