Canada Tries to Turn Its A.I. Ideas Into Dollars

Brendan Frey, the chief executive, studied under Mr. Hinton at the University of Toronto, and he has spent years on research that combines deep-learning A.I. and cell biology. When he hires software engineers, he asks them to make multiyear commitments. “There are a lot of distractions in the Bay Area,” said Mr. Frey, who is also a professor at the University of Toronto and a co-founder of the new Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.