Uber Poaches Canadian AI Expert from Toronto

Silicon Valley continues its acquisition of talent from Nearshore nations, with car-sharing giant Uber poaching an artificial intelligence expert from the Canadian talent pool.

Professor Raquel Urtasun, a leading expert in driverless car technology, and an associate at University of Toronto, was picked up by the firm at the start of the month.

The trend of importing talent from Canada is causing concern that there will be a deficit in local people who can train in-demand AI scientists.

“At its best, the current AI strategy will result in a small handful of startups flipping for cheap to big multinationals the government is courting,” said former BlackBerry co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, in an interview with The Globe and Mail.