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Latest / Government and geopolitics

ProgrammeGovernmentComputeCanadaConfirmed

Canada announces C$2.4bn for AI, mostly for compute, plus a C$50m AI Safety Institute

See how this story connects

Source: Prime Minister of Canada: Securing Canada’s AI advantage

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on 7 April 2024 in Montréal that Budget 2024 would include C$2.4bn for AI. The package has C$2bn for computing capacity and infrastructure for researchers and companies, C$200m for AI start-ups and adoption through regional development agencies, C$100m for the NRC IRAP AI Assist programme, C$50m for retraining workers, C$50m for a new Canadian AI Safety Institute and C$5.1m for the Office of the AI and Data Commissioner.

Why it matters

Canadian AI researchers and start-ups got C$2bn of public money for domestic compute, and Canada committed C$50m to set up its own AI Safety Institute.

When
7 Apr 2024
ID
WTA-N-2024-0091
Where
Canada
Who
Prime Minister of Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Canadian AI Safety Institute; Justin Trudeau

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from Prime Minister of Canada. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Read the original at Prime Minister of Canada

Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: Put into practice byCanada launches its AI Safety Institute with C$50m over five years

Data to measure this

Compare the years before 2024 with the years since in these series.

  • Epoch AI: frontier AI data centresEpoch AISite-level timelines of IT power, compute (H100-equivalents) and capital cost for large AI data centres.live · download · CSV
  • IEA Energy and AI dataInternational Energy AgencyWorld and regional data-centre capacity, power usage effectiveness, load factor and electricity use.download · XLSX
  • Epoch AI: GPU clusters (archived)Epoch AIMore than 500 GPU clusters and AI supercomputers with country, owner, performance, power and cost.Years: 2019-2025 · one-off · download · CSV · Covers before and after
  • OECD.AI: venture capital investments in AI start-upsOECD.AI (data from Preqin)Venture capital invested in AI start-ups by country and industry, with series for generative AI and AI compute start-ups.live · query tool
  • Crunchbase company and funding dataCrunchbase · paidPrivate company profiles, funding rounds and acquisitions.live · api · API
  • Dealroom AI sector dataDealroom.co · paidAI start-ups, unicorns and venture funding by country, city, stage and sub-sector.live · query tool

All data for Canada

Cite this story

WTA-N-2024-0091: “Canada announces C$2.4bn for AI, mostly for compute, plus a C$50m AI Safety Institute.” wheresthe.ai, 7 Apr 2024. https://wheresthe.ai/d/ca-ai-compute-package-2024-04/ (source: Prime Minister of Canada: Securing Canada’s AI advantage).

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