MONTREAL, February 7, 2023 - Novarium - St. Lawrence Innovation Campus and Mila - Quebec AI Institute are joining forces to develop world-class expertise in oceanic artificial intelligence (AI). The strategic partnership aims to provide startups, industrial partners and researchers of the Blue Economy with cutting-edge expertise in machine learning and to allow AI researchers to gain a better understanding of the complexity and needs of the oceanic domain.
Bringing together more than 600 researchers, Novarium focuses on the development of clean technologies, the Blue Economy, technological innovation and related academic and scientific exchanges. The strategic partnership between Mila and Novarium is based on a common desire to develop innovative and sustainable technological solutions that will lead to better management and preservation of marine ecosystems.
An efficient and sustainable Blue Economy
The Blue Economy is growing rapidly and is expected to reach US$3 trillion by 2030. The main areas of development in Quebec are smart navigation, sustainable fishing and aquaculture, and marine biotechnologies. Quebec's blue ecosystem includes about 1,000 companies in Quebec and generates more than $ 2.5 billion in economic benefits.
The sustainable strategic partnership with Mila aims to accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative solutions dedicated to industrial partners who wish to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and be mindful of the marine ecosystems with which they co-exist.
Three vectors of blue collaboration
The strategic partnership is based on three pillars:
- The sharing and development of oceanic AI related expertise
- The support of blue startups with an AI component
- Joint open innovation support program for industrial partners
"Data management in the oceanic sector can be very complex, as we have to deal with a variety of external factors. Collaboration with Mila is essential if we want to support the 1,000 companies forming the Blue subsidiary in their ecological transition. Thanks to Mila's expertise and to the joint personalized support, we will be able to develop a high-performance oceanic AI sector that will stand out internationally. We are very excited about this alliance." - Amélie Desrochers, Director of Innovation at Novarium.
"We are delighted to announce this new partnership with Novarium, which will allow us to explore ways to use AI to better manage and preserve marine ecosystems. This initiative is very much in line with Mila's mission to develop AI for the benefit of society." - Stéphane Létourneau, Executive Vice-President at Mila.
About Novarium
Founded by Martin Beaulieu, PhD, entrepreneur and CEO of SOPER-Rimouski, Novarium is an innovation campus fully dedicated to the Blue Economy. Its mission is to create synergies between startups, research centers, investors and industrial partners. Its marine accelerator - FLOTS - supports startups and industrial partners in the development and commercialization of sustainable solutions that are addressing the most pressing climate challenges, such as ocean preservation.
Novarium is connected to an international network of Blue Economy hubs and acts as an important catalyst of ocean expertise for researchers in fields such as oceanography, marine biotechnologies, marine engineering, data optimization and marine biology. For more information, visit novarium.co
About Mila
Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal, Mila is an artificial intelligence research institute that brings together over 1,000 researchers specializing in machine learning. Based in Montreal, Mila’s mission is to be a global hub for scientific advances that inspire innovation and development of AI for the benefit of all. Mila is a non-profit organization recognized worldwide for its significant contributions to the field of deep learning, particularly in language modeling, machine translation, object recognition, and generative models. For more information, visit mila.quebec.
