Samsung Research America (SRA) is launching a new artificial intelligence centre at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.
The new AI centre will be Samsung’s second in North America, with the other in Mountain View, Cali. It also comes shortly after the announcement of two newly established AI centres in Cambridge, U.K. and Moscow, Russia. The Toronto centre will be led by Dr. Sven Dickinson, professor on leave and past chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Dickinson is an expert in computer vision technologies.
Dr. Larry Heck, an expert in machine learning for spoken and text language processing, who co-leads the expansion of Samsung’s AI Centres around the globe, is also the senior vice-president of the North America AI centres. It makes perfect sense for Samsung to launch its own research lab in Toronto, Heck said in a statement.
“Toronto and the GTA are epi-centres of machine learning and one of the world’s foremost hubs for AI research and development. Home to not only world-class talent, but also some of the most innovative start-ups in the artificial intelligence field,” he said. “We are looking forward to contributing to this vibrant AI community and to help push the field forward as we move towards our goal of making all Samsung connected devices intelligent by 2020.”
Samsung says Toronto was selected because of its available AI talent, including researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo who Samsung has longstanding relationships with. According to the latest Startup Genome report, the Toronto-Waterloo area boasts some of the world’s leading research in AI, life sciences and robotics, thanks to the area’s 16 universities and colleges, notably the University of Toronto and University of Waterloo, which both have internationally recognized programs in computing sciences and engineering.