Vector Institute (Canada)
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 | |
| Formation | March 2017 |
|---|---|
| Type | Independent, nonprofit artificial intelligence organization |
| Purpose | Research in machine learning |
| Headquarters | Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Affiliations | University of Toronto |
| Employees | 714[1] |
| Website | www |
The Vector Institute (French: Institut Vecteur) is a private, non-profit artificial intelligence research institute in Toronto founded in 2017, focusing primarily on machine learning and deep learning research. As of 2023, it consists of 143 faculty members and affiliates — 38 of whom are CIFAR AI chairs — 57 postdoctoral fellows, and 502 students.[2] Along with the University of Toronto, the Vector Institute is affiliated with faculty from universities across Ontario, as well as British Columbia and Nova Scotia.[2]
Along with Montreal's Mila and Alberta's Amii, the Vector Institute is a member of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.[3]
Vector was established by Brendan Frey, Geoffrey Hinton, Raquel Urtasun in 2017[4] with the objectives of retaining and recruiting researchers in Toronto and encouraging companies to establish labs in the city.[5]
On January 2, 2018, Garth Gibson became Vector's first president and CEO,[6] and in 2023, was replaced by Tony Gaffney.[7][8] The institute was housed in the MaRS Discovery District[9] and, in 2024, moved to the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus.[10]
Funding
At the end of its founding, the Vector Institute received a combined total of $200 million CAD from private and public sectors.[11] The sources of its private sector funding include, among others, Uber,[12] Google,[13] and Shopify.[14] In 2019, the Government of Ontario cut its funding of CIFAR and the Vector Institute by $24 million CAD.[15] 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.[16]
Operations
The institute supports foundational and applied AI research,[1] and mitigates brain drain in Canada.[17] Their research priorities are:[1]
One of the goals of the institute is to support AI adoption in industries. They have helped reduce energy consumption at Telus,[18] built recommendation systems with Wahi,[19] and partnered with Kids Help Phone to build tools that help guide councillors during conversations with children.[20] They have built open source tools to monitor clinical models in production.[21]
The institute has given out $2 million CAD in masters scholarships, valued at $17,500 each.[22]