Artificial intelligence center will be located in Montreal and will focus on the development of AI implementations across Thales’ portfolio
French company Thales, which designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets, is building a center focused on the research and technology development for artificial Intelligence (AI).
The new center, located in Montreal and dubbed cortAIx, will be led by Thales in collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence Institute of Quebec (MILA), the Institute of Data Valorization (IVADO) and the Vector Institute of Toronto.
The French industrial giant said the establishment of cortAIx is another step in the firm’s digital strategy, one of the key initiatives for company-wide growth. Thales said the new center will hire 50 experts in AI research and development who will work to advance the safe and ethical applications of artificial intelligence across Thales’ product portfolio. CortAIx will focus on creating solutions to help airlines, satellite operators, air traffic controllers, mainline and light rail operators, armed forces and critical infrastructure managers, make the best decisions in decisive moments, Thales said.
“Leveraging the combined expertise of MILA, IVADO and the rich ecosystem of AI universities and laboratories, make Montreal and Canada the perfect place to develop cortAIx,” Patrice Caine, chairman and chief executive officer at Thales, said.
“With Thales’ leadership and the support of our partners, we will leverage Montreal’s unique ecosystem of world class talent and creativity to advance the applications of ethical artificial intelligence world-wide.”
The French firm highlighted that the primary goal of Thales’ cortAIx is to build ‘AI inside’ solutions that are safe and ethical while granting full authority to the human decision makers.
In the last three years, Thales has invested more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in key digital technologies and recently announced the launch of its digital factory in Paris, which brings together technology experts who support the injection of big data and artificial intelligence into Thales solutions.
