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Now is the time for Alberta-based companies and the province to invest more in AI and machine learning technology, said the CEO of an Edmonton company.

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Cam Linke, CEO of Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), said its a special time in AI machine learning with lots of advancements being made.

This isnt just an academic thing, there is the ability and tools to be able to apply machine learning to a myriad of business problems, said Linke. Right now, businesses dont have to make enormous investments upfront, they can make reasoned investments around a business plan that can have a meaningful business impact right now.

However, Linke said at the same time, the field is growing rapidly.

Its kind of a special time where its sitting right at the intersection of engineering, where it can be applied right now, and science, where the fields continuing to learn, grow and do new things, he said.

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Linke said there is a carrot in the stick when it comes to regions and companies around machine learning where the carrot is creating a lot of opportunity, business value and the ability to create a competitive advantage in your industry.

The stick of it is that if youre not, your competitor is, he said. You kind of have to, not just because theres great opportunity there, but someone in your industry and one of your competitors is going to take advantage of this technology and they will have a competitive edge over you if youre not making that investment.

Linke added Alberta is ahead of many provinces due to the province investing in machine learning since 2002 and the federal governments Pan-Canadian AI Strategy announced five years ago.

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Amii is a non-profit that supports and invests in world-leading research and training primarily done at the University of Alberta. Linke said the company has partnered with more than 100 companies, from small start-ups to multi-nationals like Shell, to help in the AI and machine learning fields.

Linke said Amii has worked with companies on implementing things such as predictive maintenance which can predict when a machine may fail which helps a company get in front of repairs before a more expensive incident occurs. Another example is the machine learning and reinforcement learning used at a water treatment plant optimizing the amount of water that can be treated, while trying to reduce the amount of energy used.

Linke said Alberta is already seeing the impacts and work of more AI and machine learning being introduced.

Were seeing it by the amount of investment by large companies in the area, the amount of investment in start-ups and the growth of start-ups in the area and were seeing it with the number of jobs and the number of people hired in the area, said Linke.

ktaniguchi@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kellentaniguchi

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CEO of Alberta-based company says it's time for Alberta, companies to invest in AI and machine learning - Edmonton Journal