Canada $24M to CIFAR 143 chairs

Canada’s latest AI funding move is less about a single grant than about how the country is trying to hold its research base together. On May 21, the federal government and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, or CIFAR, announced C$24 million to appoint and renew 42 Canada CIFAR AI Chairs at the Upper Bound AI Conference in Edmonton. That brings the program to 143 chairs across universities affiliated with Amii in Edmonton, Mila in Montreal and the Vector Institute in Toronto. The announcement was made by Evan Solomon, Canada’s minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, and framed as part of the country’s long-running Pan-Canadian AI Strategy. CIFAR says the chairs program is designed to recruit and retain top AI researchers in Canada and give them long-term research support. (newswire.ca) ### Why is 143 chairs the number to watch? The 143 figure matters because the new money is not funding 143 new posts. It supports 42 appointments in this round — 20 new chairs and 22 renewals — while lifting the overall network to 143 active chairs nationwide. CIFAR said those chairs are distributed through the country’s three national AI institutes and are meant to support researchers working across areas including healthcare, biotech, sustainable energy and safe AI applications. (newswire.ca) The organization describes the program as a cornerstone of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy. (betakit.com) ### Where does this fit in Canada’s broader AI policy? Canada launched the world’s first national AI strategy in 2017, and CIFAR has remained a central delivery partner. The federal government’s current strategy page says CIFAR is receiving C$208 million over 10 years, from 2021-22 through 2030-31, to enhance programs that attract, retain and develop academic AI talent and maintain research and training centres at Amii, Mila and Vector. (newswire.ca) The chairs program sits inside that talent-and-research pillar. CIFAR says the chairs receive long-term, dedicated research funding intended to support their research programs and help train graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. ### Why is Ottawa putting more money into academic chairs now? Evan Solomon said in remarks carried by CIFAR that expanding the network to 143 chairs would help keep Canada “the best place in the world for AI talent to build their careers and make an impact.” BetaKit, which reported from the announcement in Edmonton, said the move came amid what Solomon and earlier sector letters described as a global fight for AI talent. (cifar.ca) (ised-isde.canada.ca) A July 2025 letter from CIFAR, Amii, Mila and the Vector Institute called that competition an “unprecedented global war for AI talent,” according to BetaKit. The same report said the latest funding followed calls from the institutes and CIFAR for more federal support for Canadian AI talent pipelines. ### What is Canada saying about the size of its AI research cluster? (newswire.ca) CIFAR said the chairs network now forms part of what it called the world’s “third-highest impact AI research cluster.” Elissa Strome, executive director of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR, repeated that claim in comments reported by BetaKit. (betakit.com) That language is part of a broader push by Ottawa and its AI institutions to present Canada not only as an early policy mover, but as a place where university research, training and commercialization can stay linked. The Upper Bound conference itself ran May 19-22 in Edmonton, hosted by Amii at the Edmonton Convention Centre. ### What comes next after this funding round? (newswire.ca) The immediate next step is the integration of the 20 new appointees and 22 renewed chairs into the existing CIFAR network at Amii, Mila and Vector. CIFAR’s chairs page continues to list current chairholders and affiliated institutions, while the broader Pan-Canadian AI Strategy runs through 2030-31 under current federal funding timelines. (newswire.ca) (amii.ca)