Artificial Intelligence

A world-class applied artificial intelligence ecosystem

Waterloo is pushing the pace in applied artificial intelligence with 130+ companies working in natural language processing, smart robotics, machine learning and human-machine interaction. These companies include Faire, ApplyBoard, eSentire and Arctic Wolf - four companies with $1+ billion valuations.

Our support ecosystem is one-of-a-kind, with Canada’s top innovation hub (Communitech), Canada’s #1 AI business accelerator (The Accelerator Centre) and Canada’s most productive incubator (Velocity) working together to help startups, scale-ups and established companies innovate and grow. The University of Waterloo’s AI Institute is highly-regarded and ranked #2 in Canada for AI research and #11 in the world for AI citation impact.

Download our AI Ecosystem Map for a full listing of companies and organizations working in artificial intelligence.

North America’s #1 emerging tech talent market

In 2021, CBRE’s annual Scoring Tech Talent report recognized Waterloo as North America’s top small tech talent market. For three consecutive years, CBRE has ranked Waterloo #1 in Canada for tech talent quality and quality-to-cost. 

The University of Waterloo–Canada’s top technology university– helps fill this outstanding tech talent pipeline. Our experiential learning programs – known as co-operative education– ensure that most engineering and computer science students graduate with two years of on-the-job experience at world-class companies, and our computer science program is ranked in the top-25 globally. More than 18% of all Canadian tech founders were trained at the University of Waterloo. 

A unique focus on entrepreneurship has led to the second highest density of startups in North America. In fact, more than 18% of all Canadian tech founders were trained at the University of Waterloo.

Artificial Intelligence in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor

Waterloo is also a key partner in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor, which is the second largest technology cluster in North America and one of the world’s top tech hubs. Within this area you’ll find 15,000 tech companies, including 5,200+ startups and more than 300,000 tech workers.  

The Corridor has a particular strength in artificial intelligence, with hundreds of companies and unique research assets like the Vector Institute, which works with institutions, industry, startups, incubators and accelerators to advance AI research and drive its application, adoption and commercialization across Canada.

Local artificial intelligence companies include: