$162-million Mitacs deal pairs students and graduates with employers to speed AI adoption and build Canada's talent pipeline
Canadian employers that want to put artificial intelligence (AI) to work but lack the in-house skills will soon be able to tap 10,000 federally co-funded AI work placements for post-secondary students, recent graduates and post-doctoral fellows.
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has announced that it will provide up to $162 million over five years, beginning in 2026–2027, to Mitacs, a national not-for-profit that brokers research partnerships between industry and post-secondary institutions.
For HR leaders, the placements double as a hiring pipeline. Mitacs says one in three former interns are hired by their host company, and 70% remain in research and development roles in Canada, based on its data from April 2018 to March 2026.
How will the Mitacs AI work placements run?
The funding supports Mitacs AI Advantage, which has two streams. ADOPT pairs businesses with academic researchers and student talent to test and deploy AI. AI+X co-funds research collaborations that apply AI to business problems in fields including agriculture and health care.
Host organizations share the cost. Mitacs lists award values of $10,000 to $25,000 per placement, with the partner contributing half. Placements typically last four or six months. Mitacs works with more than 200 post-secondary institutions, 170 innovation incubators and 12,500 companies, and has supported more than 4,200 AI-related innovation projects since 2020, according to ISED.
Mitacs CEO Stephen Lucas says the model puts graduates on the job. "Through Mitacs AI Advantage, we're embedding young, highly skilled Canadians directly into businesses, giving them real-world work experience with responsible AI, while helping our small and medium-sized enterprises adopt AI, innovate and compete with confidence."
"It's not just an employment program; it's an adoption program. It builds the workforce of the future. It helps Canadian organizations be more productive and stay competitive," said Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, in making the announcement in Toronto, according to BetaKit.
The placements deliver on the national AI strategy that puts workforce transformation at the centre, which targets up to 90,000 AI-related opportunities for young Canadians by 2031. They complement the Canada Summer Jobs 2026 hiring period for young workers and arrive after youth unemployment in Canada dropped for three consecutive months through July 2026. It was little changed at 12.9% in August, according to Statistics Canada.
Why is the AI adoption gap a skills gap?
Statistics Canada data cited in the strategy show only 12% of Canadian businesses used AI to produce goods or services between mid-2024 and mid-2025. Among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), adoption sits at about 8%, compared with 26% in Germany, according to the strategy.
Canada ranked 44th of 47 countries on AI training and literacy in the KPMG–University of Melbourne global trust study cited in the strategy, and only 24% of Canadians reported receiving AI training.
ISED says the challenge for many SMEs lies less in recognizing AI's potential than in having the skills and capacity to use it. Ottawa wants 60% of businesses using AI by 2034, according to the strategy. The placements follow the National AI Literacy Initiative, launched with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) on Sept. 9, 2026, according to ISED.
