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Gripes about traffic, corruption and wasteful bureaucracy remain common among Montrealers, but brighter days could be ahead, if only there were political will to put artificial intelligence technology being developed in this city to work for this city.

Given Montreal’s continuing history of being ruled by notoriously inefficient municipal governments, it’s ironic (but exciting) to find it among a select group of cities leading the world in AI research. Last week, Facebook announced a partnership with MILA (Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms at Université de Montréal) and McGill University; Montreal joins Silicon Valley, New York City and Paris as the social network’s fourth AI research centre.

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(Soon, you’ll be able to speak to Facebook as you can to iPhone’s Siri, and 30 Montreal AI researchers will help build the technology.)

Google, Microsoft and other multinationals have already invested in Montreal’s AI community as local startups like Element AI attract venture capital from around the world; the provincial government has committed $100 million over five years, while $125 million has been set aside federally for Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo and Edmonton (a positive, but modest first step).