Canada has introduced a national Artificial Intelligence strategy that puts sovereignty at the centre of its technology policy, following the European Commission’s launch of a Technological Sovereignty Package aimed at loosening the grip of US Big Tech on cloud and Artificial Intelligence infrastructure. The Artificial Intelligence for All strategy is built around six pillars and sets out a goal for Canadians to adopt, build and govern Artificial Intelligence on their own terms.
The plan frames foreign dependence as a strategic vulnerability. It says too much Canadian innovation is captured and scaled elsewhere, while sovereign compute capacity remains nascent and Canadian organisations rely heavily on foreign providers for the infrastructure behind economic, scientific and public-sector activity. GPU chip fabrication sits “almost entirely offshore”, and only 12pc of Canadian businesses currently use Artificial Intelligence, well behind Nordic counterparts, where adoption runs between 29 and 42pc.
The six pillars cover safety and democracy protections, Artificial Intelligence skills and literacy for all Canadians, accelerated adoption across the economy, building sovereign compute infrastructure, scaling Canadian Artificial Intelligence champions, and forging trusted international alliances. On infrastructure, the Canadian government is committing to building a world-leading supercomputer by 2031 and growing sovereign cloud capacity to reduce dependence on foreign providers, echoing the EU’s CADA (Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Development Act) proposals published on Wednesday.
Canada aims to increase business Artificial Intelligence adoption from 12pc today to 60pc by 2034, create up to 250,000 new jobs through Artificial Intelligence adoption by 2031, and create nearly $200bn in GDP gains from labour productivity improvements. Priority sectors for investment will be: health and life sciences; energy and natural resources; transportation; agriculture; and manufacturing and robotics.
The strategy flags that Canada has already signed 20 new economic and defence international partnerships in the past year, 11 of which advance Artificial Intelligence cooperation. The Canadian government said it will build a strategic multilateral alliance to move “from reliance to resilience” in key Artificial Intelligence and technology capabilities. The plan also commits to modernising privacy legislation, introducing online safety laws and providing free Artificial Intelligence literacy training to 1m entry-level, post-secondary students.
