AI Hub Cities

Computer technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are practically coevals, having both originated in the post-WWII period. However, unlike computer tech, which has enjoyed specular uninterrupted growth, AI has gone through several near-extinction periods when, owing to the lack of obvious progress in the field, interest from the industry evaporated and academic research funding dwindled. Another period of optimism and activity would inevitably follow, but no one knew in advance how long it would last. The field was thus progressing in starts and fits, bouncing back and forth between "AI summers" and "AI winters."

We are currently in the midst of one of the longest "summer" periods and many in the trade think it's going to be permanent. Maybe. Only time will tell.

This particular AI season started around 2010, when cheap data storage, combined with performance breakthroughs in machine learning (ML) algorithms engendered an explosion of activity in this field based on a set of technologies referred to as "big data." The current season's buzzword is "deep learning" and, as Yann LeCunn (PAR / NYC) has pointed out, whereas before 2010 any article that featured it would almost automatically get rejected by most academic journals, very shortly afterward, the same fate would befall authors who didn't mention deep learning somewhere.

The main AI/Tech hubs are listed below. In the section under the list and the map, I briefly profile each of the cities on the list and give the associated orgnizations and researchers.

The following highlights some of the research organizations involved in AI research, grouped by metro area.

San Francisco / Bay Area

The Bay Area, in addition to being the biggest startup incubator in the whole world, is also home to many Silicon Valley institutions active in the field of AI. The

• Stanford AI Lab (Stanford University, Palo Alto)
• SRI International's Artificial Intelligence Center (AIC)

• Google Brain (Google)
• Quantum AI Lab (Google/NASA)
• OpenAI

Greater Boston

The Greater Boston area, with its links to the MIT, is another global AI hub.

• Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines (MIT, Harvard)
• MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT, Cambridge)

• MIT Watson AI Lab

New York City

• NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences

• Facebook AI Research group (FAIR) [key person: Yann LeCunn]
• Samsung Research - New York

Montreal

• MILA (Université de Montréal, McGill University, HEC, Polytechnique) [key person: Yoshua Bengio]

• Element AI - Montreal
• Samsung Research - Montreal
• Facebook AI - Montreal [Joelle Pineau]
• Google AI - Montreal [Hugo Larochelle]
• Microsoft Research - Montreal [Jennifer Chayes]

Toronto

It was a team of Toronto researchers that was largely responsible for launching the current boom in AI with the publication of one experimental result on image processing. Since 2012, the year when this particular encouraging result was published, the whole field of AI has been largely about "deep learning" – to the exclusion of pretty much every other sub-field and much to the chagrin to the many researchers who happen to work on the currently-out-of-fashion topics.

• University of Toronto [No otype=Person oid=hinton_geoffrey ]
• The Vector Institute [No otype=Person oid=hinton_geoffrey ]

• Samsung Research - Toronto
• Element AI - Toronto
• CIFAR

Seattle

Home of Microsoft and Paul Allen-founded "Institute for AI."

• Allen Institute for AI
• MSR AI - Microsoft Research Lab - AI (Redmond) [Eric Horvitz, director]

Edmonton

• The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii)

Pittsburgh

• No otype=Company oid=cmu_ai_us

Paris

Paris is a major European AI Center. However, things are done a bit differently in France. With less reliance of private capital and more – on government-funded programs, French researchers are finding themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to the scale of funding and the size of their paychecks. Nevertheless, a wide variety of projects, both public and private, are ongoing.

• No otype=Company oid=dataia_fr
• IDRIS (Institut du développement et des ressources en informatique scientifique)


• Facebook AI Lab – Paris
• Google AI – Paris
• Fujitsu Center of Excellence - Paris Saclay (PPP)
• Valeo.ai

Greater London

For several years now, London leads European capitals in terms of the numbers of AI-flavored startups.

• Samsung Research - Cambridge

Berlin

Much like London, Berlin is a major startup hub in Europe. Many of the startups are AI-focused.

• Foundational Research Institute

Lausanne

• LIA (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at EPFL)

Moscow

• School of Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence - Higher School of Economics
• Samsung Research - Moscow