Facebook to establish artificial intelligence research lab in Montreal

Facebook is to set up an artificial intelligence research lab in Montreal, the company's first intelligence lab in Canada, and only its second outside of the United States, according to the CTV Friday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended Facebook's announcing ceremony of the lab in Montreal.

"Facebook's new lab in Montreal will underline Canada's status as a global AI powerhouse and a leader in the economy of the future - and encourage other leading tech companies to set up shop here and create good, middle-class jobs for Canadians," said Trudeau.

By next year, the lab is expected to employ a team of 20 researchers headed by McGill University's Dr. Joelle Pineau, a leading AI researcher.

The researchers will develop new ways of teaching machines the complex relationship between actions and results, known as reinforcement learning. They will also develop dialogue systems for machines and computers that enable them to speak with users in a natural and easily understandable way.

In addition to this new lab, Facebook will invest 7 million Canadian dollars (about 5.74 million U.S. dollars) in the broader Montreal-based artificial intelligence community through partnerships with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms.