Tech industry is hopeful Canada’s AI experience will create an opportunity for local companies to disrupt the AI world
“The game is not over,” said Julien Billot, the chief executive of Scale AI, a consortium of private firms, research centres, academics and startups in the AI space.
Last week alone, OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle announced a plan to invest up to US$500 billion in a new company called Stargate, which will aim to develop and expand AI infrastructure in the U.S.
DeepSeek’s advances amid this U.S. funding show more breakthroughs can happen and they don’t necessarily have to come from south of the border, Billot said.
“It’s very encouraging because it means money is not everything,” Billot said.
“Obviously, money is important, but … clever people can do something different with less money, and that’s something Canada can take inspiration from.”
Billot was hopeful Canada’s AI history and assets will create a great opportunity for companies in the country to disrupt the AI world next.
Among the promising Canadian firms he named was Cohere, a Toronto-based firm developing AI for enterprise use.
Asked about DeepSeek on Tuesday, Aidan Gomez, Cohere’s co-founder and chief executive, said the future of AI is all about efficiency.
“It’s not about unlimited resources but about smart, efficient solutions,” he said in a statement.
“We’ve believed this for a long time, but it’s finally hitting home across the industry.”
Marc Low, director of innovation and emerging technology for consultancy firm KPMG in Canada, appeared to agree.
He predicted DeepSeek will hasten a deflationary trend in generative AI costs and make the technology more affordable and accessible for organizations of all sizes because it costs “mere pennies” to run a query with DeepSeek’s AI assistant.
“This could be good news for Canadian companies as the barriers to entry to utilize the technology drop even further,” Low said in a statement.