(Bloomberg) — Canada will provide funding to help artificial intelligence companies scale up, and plans to take equity stakes in the country’s most promising AI firms to accelerate the creation of so-called “national champions.”
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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government released a plan on Thursday to promote AI adoption across sectors and government, while safeguarding against the risks the technology can pose. By 2034, the government aims to have 60% of Canadian businesses use AI tools, up from 12% in 2025.
The plan earmarks billions of dollars to increase adoption, commercialization and sovereign computing capacity, including a C$500 million ($360 million) Canadian Tech Growth Fund to provide “flexible growth capital and investment support” for startups.
“Canada must adopt policies similar to those of France, Japan, and now the United States, and take equity stakes in its best technology companies to cultivate and sustain their growth in Canada and around the world, to secure its AI supply chain, and to ensure that Canadians also share the dividends of successful Canadian champions,” the strategy document says.
Carney’s recently announced sovereign wealth fund might also invest in those companies, it said.
The sovereign wealth fund was announced in April with an initial C$25 billion grant, and aims to give Canadians an opportunity to invest in what the government calls nation-building projects. It’s still consulting on the structure and has provided few details on how it will work.
The focus on building up the country’s AI capacities and protecting its data sovereignty is part of the government’s push to make Canada less reliant on the US from both economic and security standpoints.
The strategy also calls for Canada to lead a “multinational sovereign technology alliance” of like-minded democracies, pooling research, talent, computing capacity and purchasing power as an alternative to dominant players. Canada has already struck a similar partnership with Germany.
Asked whether the strategy could inflame US trade relations, Carney said Canada’s approach to sovereign computing capacity is one that “any sentient country is taking.”
“Does that mean there aren’t important roles in the Canadian AI ecosystem for US-based AI companies? No,” Carney said. “But we will make the laws here and we will also grow our capacity here, our physical compute capacity, if I can put it that way, so that we can protect Canadians.”