TL;DR
Anthropic has awarded $10 million to eight Canadian institutions for artificial intelligence research. Canada has the second highest per capita use of Claude in the world. Startups get $5K API credit.
Anthropic commits $10 million to eight Canadian research institutions to fund work on useful and responsible AI applications. The partnerships include three of Canada’s leading regional AI institutes, Amii in Edmonton, Mila in Montreal and the Vector Institute in Toronto, the children’s hospital CHEO, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Université Laval, the University of Toronto and the University of Saskatchewan.
The funding spans research areas from reinforcement learning and AI security to mental health, local languages and quantum computing. Mila will use Claude to develop AI assistants that help researchers discover and evaluate scientific breakthroughs. CAMH’s Krembil Center for Neuroinformatics will build predictive models for mental health treatment and conduct fair evaluations of psychiatric artificial intelligence systems. Université Laval will study how large language models behave in different cultural contexts, including Quebec French and indigenous languages.
Anthropic also released its first data on the country of Canada from the Anthropic Economic Index. Canada ranks eighth in the world in Claude use, but second in adoption per capita, with Canadians using Claude at four times the rate predicted by their population. Only the US ranks higher. Usage follows the local economy: Translation requests are highest in provinces with more government employees, reflecting Canada’s bilingualism requirements. British Columbia leads in per capita consumption, with Ontario close behind. Anthropic has committed $200 million to the Gates Foundation partnership in May, and the Canadian investment expands the company’s model of building nonprofit relationships alongside its enterprise business.
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This summer, Anthropic will add Amii, Mila and Vector to its startup program, giving hundreds of affiliated Canadian startups at least $5,000 each in API credits. “Some of the foundations of modern artificial intelligence came from Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton, and so, surprisingly, many researchers were most determined to make it safe.” said co-founder Chris Olah. Anthropic systematically extends Claude’s existence creating distribution and interdependency between enterprise, government and now academic institutions, but also across every sector.
