Canada's participation as Country of the Year is a testament to the strength of its AI ecosystem
PARIS, June 13, 2025 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, concluded a successful visit to Paris, France, where he met with key industry and political leaders to advance Canada's growth agenda.
Minister Solomon led the Canadian delegation for the opening of the 9th edition of VivaTech. He welcomed President Emmanuel Macron to the Canada Pavilion on the first day of the conference and showcased some of Canada's leading innovators to the French delegation. At President Macron's invitation, Minister Solomon later participated in a working dinner with French business leaders at the Élysée Palace.
Minister Solomon participated in Montréal-based company Hypertec's announcement of a $5 billion initiative to build one of Europe's largest sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure networks, with over 2 gigawatts of data centre capacity and nearly 100,000 NVIDIA graphics processing units planned in France, Italy, Portugal and the U.K. This initiative demonstrates Canadian leadership on the world stage and will translate to a $250 million investment by the company in Quebec to build next-generation server facilities and create over 100 specialized jobs in AI-related fields.
Over the course of his visit, Minister Solomon held bilateral discussions with Clara Chappaz, Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies from France; Lex Delles, Minister of the Economy, SME, Energy and Tourism from Luxembourg; and His Excellency Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of the Economy from the United Arab Emirates. Their discussions reflected Canada's commitment to develop collaborative research and development initiatives, to facilitate and accelerate the commercialization of Canadian products and services, and to build additional compute infrastructure in Canada.
In focused discussions with political and business leaders, including with Jay Puri, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations at NVIDIA, Minister Solomon advanced key Canadian AI and digital priorities, including scaling our companies and ecosystems, unlocking productivity through technology adoption, fueling trust in a digital economy, and pursuing Canadian digital sovereign capabilities.
As the Country of the Year, Canada greatly expanded its footprint at VivaTech with a Canada Pavilion of 500 square metres and a business delegation of over 230 Canadian companies. This showcase highlighted the innovation of Canadian companies and the maturity of Canada's AI ecosystem and reinforced its reputation as a world leader in AI. The 2025 Canadian presence and business delegation was spearheaded by Scale AI, one of Canada's global innovation clusters.
The Canada Pavilion offered a nexus for Canadian companies to feature their technology and success and to pursue the trade diversification Canada needs for its products and companies. The world was introduced to Canadian innovators like Airudi, CGI, Cohere, Farpoint Technologies, IVADO Labs, Mappedin, Pontosense, Trusting Pixels, Videns and Vooban.
As AI continues to shape our world in new and unexpected ways, the Government of Canada seeks to harness AI's opportunities, mitigate its risks and foster trust. With strategic government investments and support for responsible AI adoption, Canada will grow its AI ecosystem and enhance productivity across the country.
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"Our government's strategic framework is to scale our AI industry by championing our innovation leaders, to drive AI adoption rates to spur economic growth, to ensure that Canadians have trust in the responsible use of AI, and to build a more secure digital Canada with sovereign data centres and secure cloud. On my first international visit, I focused my efforts on championing our Canadian ecosystem to drive companies into new international markets. By engaging with trusted partners, we will create value out of shared values."
– The Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
Quick facts
- Canada and France issued a joint statement in July 2018 that laid the foundations for the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), which now has 28 nations and the European Union as members.
- VivaTech is the largest startup and technology event in Europe, and this 9th edition brought together over 165,000 participants from 160 countries.
- The Global Innovation Clusters program is a co-investment with industry to build accelerated, innovative ecosystems that will take innovators further, faster through collaboration.
- Scale AI, one of Canada's five global innovation clusters, is leveraging AI technologies to build resilient and sustainable supply chains, with a focus on creating an innovative and competitive Canadian economy.
Associated links
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence – GPAI
- Canada named as Country of the Year for France's 2025 Viva Technology
- https://vivatechnology.com/
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Contacts: Cindy Caturao, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, [email protected]; Media Relations, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, [email protected]
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