Hey,

By now you've probably heard Canada launched its national AI strategy last week. Let me actually break down what's in it because most of the coverage missed the details.

It's a five year plan. The headline numbers are $200 billion in GDP growth, 250,000 new jobs, and business AI adoption jumping from 12% today to 60% by 2034.

Here's what's actually in it.

Skills and jobs: A $500 million financing program, a national AI literacy push targeting 1 million post-secondary students and 90,000 job placements for young Canadians.

Infrastructure: Canada is targeting 850 megawatts of sovereign compute capacity by 2030 and $700 million in affordable compute access for small and medium businesses. The interesting part. Canada's clean energy advantage - hydro, nuclear, cold climate geography - actually makes us a legitimate competitor for data centre investment.

Protection: stronger privacy laws, rules against deepfakes and surveillance pricing, and an expanded Canadian AI Safety Institute.

The clean AI angle is worth watching separately. Canada ranks third globally in clean AI venture capital deals. Over 230 Canadian AI companies work in agriculture, energy, transport and resources. One projection puts that sector at 30,000 jobs and $9 billion in investment by 2030.

What it means for you

The $700 million in compute access for small and medium businesses is the most directly relevant piece for Canadian entrepreneurs. Details on how to access it are still coming but that's the number to watch.

The strategy has substance. The clean energy infrastructure angle is genuinely smart. But critics are right that there's almost nothing on protecting workers whose jobs AI will eliminate and nothing serious on intellectual property reform. A strategy that's serious about AI adoption without addressing those two things isn't complete.

Until next time,

Dean.