LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Element AI, an artificial intelligence company that delivers groundbreaking AI solutions, is expanding to Europe with an AI lab in London, UK. Dr. Julien Cornebise, a former DeepMind scientist, will be leading the London office. The initial focus will be on ‘AI for Good’ whilst expanding Element AI’s unique collaborative network with industry, university researchers, and both governmental and non-governmental organizations; an approach engineered to promote knowledge sharing that benefits all. This office will also serve as Element AI’s European head office with growth plans to include over 20 full-time researchers and employees.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Element AI solves the world's most difficult problems for organizations worldwide; delivering AI applications that give companies a competitive edge to outperform their competition. Serial entrepreneurs Jean-François Gagné, Nicolas Chapados, and Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer of deep learning, founded Element AI in October 2016 with the goal of empowering industry by leveraging the talent of elite AI academics. Drawing on their extensive backgrounds and success in research and industry deployment, Element AI is uniquely poised to deliver innovative AI products, solutions, and contribute to applied AI research.

Element AI’s lab in London will start by focusing on three core initiatives:

Leveraging AI to help solve global issues by empowering NGOs, intergovernmental entities, and local actors; Advancing methodological research as needed by these applications; Promoting and connecting talented AI scientists and engineers in developing nations through fellowships and visiting scholar programs. The London office will eventually grow into a full stack office.

“Element AI’s expansion into Europe with a London office is our first step in collaborating with Europe’s top AI talent and connecting them with our extensive AI teams in Canada; all while working with several of the most prestigious organizations to leverage AI for Good,” said Element AI CEO Jean-François Gagné. “Element AI is committed to enabling AI for Good in our society; we believe this technology can help tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues and London will help make that a reality. We’ve handpicked Dr. Julien Cornebise to lead our efforts in London because his values and experience aligns with Element AI’s goal to balance advances in industry while leading the charge for positive social change. Julien’s unique experience includes applying AI to humanitarian issues in collaboration with Amnesty International and co-founding the Health Research team during his time at DeepMind. We are confident that Julien is the right leader to kick start our European operations and are thrilled to have him on board.”

Dr. Julien Cornebise will lead the London Office as Director of Research. Julien joined DeepMind Technologies Limited (later acquired by Google) in 2012 as an early employee. In his four years at DeepMind, he led several fundamental research directions used in early demos and fundraising, and helped create and lead its Health Applied Research Team. Since leaving DeepMind in 2016, he has been working with Amnesty International. Julien holds an MSc in Computer Engineering, an MSc in Mathematical Statistics, and earned his PhD in Mathematics, specialised in Computational Statistics, from University Paris VI Pierre and Marie Curie, for which he received the 2010 Savage Award from the International Society for Bayesian Analysis.

“AI for Good can mean many things — at Element AI, I see it as using AI and ML to empower those who are already fighting the good fights,” said Julien Cornebise, Director of Research and Head of London Office. “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are powerful tools that deserve deployment beyond industrial, market-driven applications. Amazing people in NGOs, international organizations, and local initiatives alike, have dedicated their lives to solving the most important problems, such as fighting for human rights, more equitable access to resources, and education. At Element AI, we want to give these amazing organizations access to the type of AI talent that is out of reach for so many, working hand-in-hand on their world-changing programs and initiatives, driven by their domain knowledge.”

Matt Sansam, Innovation Lead for Digital at Innovate UK said, “Element AI’s establishment of a London office is testament to the strengths of the UK research and innovation ecosystem in AI, and the potential for industrial collaborations with our businesses. When we met with the company during a recent Expert Mission to Canada, it was clear there were many opportunities for these partnerships to thrive in the future, and their new UK base is a very positive step forward. We look forward to facilitating further partnerships under the remit of the UK-Canada Memorandum-of-Understanding (MoU) on Science, Technology and Innovation.”

About Element AI

Element AI delivers groundbreaking artificial intelligence solutions to enterprise companies, bringing together the best AI experts and top entrepreneurs to produce next generation AI capabilities for any organization. Element AI is headquartered in Montreal, Canada and is funded by leading investors including BDC Capital, Data Collective, Fidelity Investments Canada, Hanwha Investment, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, National Bank, NVIDIA GPU Ventures, Real Ventures, and Tencent. http://www.elementai.com