Mitacs and RBC Borealis partner to accelerate AI solutions for financial services

Advancing applied AI through academic–industry partnership

RBC Borealis is a leading research institute with a mandate to accelerate AI and data-driven solutions within the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and transform the financial services industry on a global scale. Since the institute’s inception nine years ago, RBC Borealis has actively partnered with Mitacs to connect with promising researchers and promote academic–industry collaboration, all while working to retain top AI talent in Canada.

RBC Borealis launched their first project with Mitacs in 2016 to create better speech-to-text software that could be read by an AI engine. Since then, Mitacs has collaborated with RBC Borealis on 22 projects, working with 120 interns from universities across the country. Examples of cutting-edge projects underway include a financial forecasting algorithm to reduce the risk of investment in the stock market, novel Machine Learning (ML) methods that improve event prediction outcomes from finance to natural disasters, and developed Flora, which can pre-train multi-billion parameter LLMs on a single graphics processing unit (GPU). These projects have also contributed to several papers accepted at top-tier research conferences.

“With Mitacs, RBC Borealis is helping bridge the gap between academic research and real-world impact. Together, we’re giving emerging researchers the opportunity to apply cutting-edge AI in meaningful ways, advancing innovation, building critical skills, and strengthening Canada’s position as a global leader in
AI and Machine Learning.”

— Dr. Eirene Seiradaki, Director, Research Partnerships,
RBC Borealis

Mitacs’s programs receive funding from multiple partners across Canada. We thank the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon for supporting us to empower Canadian innovation. 

Do you have a business challenge that could benefit from a research solution? If so, contact Mitacs today to discuss partnership opportunities: [email protected].