Mila - Quebec AI Institute (originally ''Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms'') is a

research institute A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, focusing mainly on

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 ( ...

research. Approximately 1000 students and researchers and 100 faculty members, were part of Mila in 2022. Along with Alberta's Amii and Toronto's Vector Institute, Mila is part of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

History

Mila traces its foundations to the ''Laboratoire d'informatique des systèmes adaptatifs'' (LISA) at the

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

and to the Reasoning and Learning Lab (RL-Lab) at

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

. LISA was founded in 1993 by

Yoshua Bengio Yoshua Bengio (born March 5, 1964) is a Canadian-French computer scientist, and a pioneer of artificial neural networks and deep learning. He is a professor at the Université de Montréal and scientific director of the AI institute Montreal In ...

, a

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...

winner who is one of the founders of the field of

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 ...

and is the most-cited living scientist across all fields (by total citations); the RL-Lab was founded in 2001 and is currently co-directed by Professors Prakash Panangaden, Doina Precup, Joëlle Pineau, and Jackie Chi Kit Cheung. In 2017, Mila was established as a partnership between the

and

with

École Polytechnique de Montréal École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

and

HEC Montréal HEC Montréal (; English: ''High Commercial Studies of Montreal'') is a bilingual public business school located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1907, HEC Montréal is the graduate business school of the Université de Montréal and is ...

. In December 2020, Mila teamed up with

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning research using open-source technology in a bid to integrate the Quebec institute’s open-source software, Oríon, with IBM’s Watson Machine Learning Accelerator, an AI model training and inference tool that the tech giant offers to businesses.

Notable researchers

Besides Bengio, Mila's faculty members include Joëlle Pineau and Doina Precup. Some of its graduates include Marc Bellemare (MSc 2007 - RL-Lab), Hugo Larochelle (PhD 2009 - LISA) and Ian Goodfellow (PhD 2014 - LISA).

Research activities

Research at Mila is largely, but not exclusively focused on

and

reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning (RL) is an interdisciplinary area of machine learning and optimal control concerned with how an intelligent agent should take actions in a dynamic environment in order to maximize a reward signal. Reinforcement learnin ...

. Specific research topics include: *

generative model In statistical classification, two main approaches are called the generative approach and the discriminative approach. These compute classifiers by different approaches, differing in the degree of statistical modelling. Terminology is inconsiste ...

s *

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

meta learning Meta-learning is a branch of metacognition concerned with learning about one's own learning and learning processes. The term comes from the meta prefix's modern meaning of an abstract recursion, or "X about X", similar to its use in metaknowl ...

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

* applications of AI, including:

climate change research The history of the scientific discovery of climate change began in the early 19th century when ice ages and other natural changes in paleoclimate were first suspected and the natural greenhouse effect was first identified. In the late 19th centu ...

and

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

research. *

artificial general intelligence Artificial general intelligence (AGI)—sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI—is a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. Some researchers argue that sta ...

superintelligence A superintelligence is a hypothetical intelligent agent, agent that possesses intelligence surpassing that of the brightest and most intellectual giftedness, gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of advanced problem- ...

AI alignment In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), alignment aims to steer AI systems toward a person's or group's intended goals, preferences, or ethical principles. An AI system is considered ''aligned'' if it advances the intended objectives. A '' ...

* AGI governance * frontier models

Board of Directors

Board of Directors that watch over Mila's strategic directions are: * Alexandre Le Bouthillier, General Partner - Linearis * Alexandre Synett * Anne-Marie Hubert, Managing Partner - Ernst & Young * Benoit Boulet, Associate Dean (Research & Innovation) - McGill University * Caroline Aubé, Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer, HEC Montreal * Eugénie Brouillet, Associate Dean (Research, Creation and Innovation) - Université Laval * Frédéric Bouchard, Dean Faculty of Arts and Science - Université de Montréal * Josée Morin, Company Administrator * Magaly Charbonneau, Hi-tech Venture Capitalist - Inovia Capital * Marie-Josée Hébert, Vice Rector, Research, Discovery, Creation and Innovation - Université de Montréal * Martha Crago, Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation - McGill University * Mathieu Gervais, Observer, Assistant Deputy Minister for Science and Innovation at the Ministère de l'Économie et de l'innovation *

Pierre Boivin Pierre Boivin (born October 28, 1953) is a Canadian businessman and was president of the Montreal Canadiens from September 2, 1999, through June 30, 2011, succeeding Ronald Corey. On July 9, 2024, he succeeded John McCall MacBain as chancell ...

, President, Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer - Claridge * Valerie Pisano, Observer, Board of Directors, President and CEO - Mila *

, Observer, Board of Directors, Scientific Director, Mila & IVADO

Other activities

Mila is both a research and educational institution, providing

postdoc A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary academ ...

and

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

positions, and providing a research environment for students enrolled in their respective universities and working towards their graduate degrees such as

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

and

Master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

degrees in

. Mila members have also contributed to

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

. Theano, one of the early programming frameworks for

originated at MILA. In 2020, active projects included myia, a deep learning framework for

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

, and baby-ai, a platform for simulating language learning with a human in the loop. In addition, Mila is also involved in numerous partnerships with private companies.

References

External links

Mila
{{authority control Research institutes in Canada McGill University Université de Montréal Artificial intelligence laboratories 1993 establishments in Quebec