Province looks to ‘seize the generational job opportunities at hand’
Ontario is putting $30 million into the Vector Institute to speed up artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across the province's industries.
The funding flows through the provincial government’s Critical Technologies Initiative (CTI) program. The Vector Institute, a Toronto-based non-profit AI research organization, is the first recipient under the revamped program, according to the Ontario government.
The province said the institute's engineers and researchers will work with Canadian companies and organizations to integrate and deploy AI across their operations.
"As AI continues to reshape the global economy, Ontario holds a position of strength, equipped with the talent, research capacity and industry expertise needed to enhance our digital sovereignty and seize the generational job opportunities at hand," said Vic Fedeli, Ontario's Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.
Ontario's program guidelines cap provincial support at 50% of eligible project costs, to a maximum of $30 million per applicant. The guidelines list talent attraction, training and workforce development among eligible activities.
The government reported the following results for the program:
|
Critical Technologies Initiative |
Result |
|
Funding committed since 2023 |
$214 million |
|
Jobs retained or created |
65,000+ |
|
Highly skilled workers trained |
14,000+ |
|
Renewal in the 2026 Ontario Budget |
$107 million |
AI workforce projections
The province said AI adoption will add $122 billion to Ontario's cumulative real gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035. That figure came from a November 2025 study by Deloitte Canada commissioned by the Vector Institute.
|
AI economic impact |
Figure |
|
Contribution of AI-related jobs in Ontario, past five years |
$42 billion–$52 billion |
|
Projected cumulative real GDP gain in Ontario by 2035 |
$122 billion |
|
Projected new jobs a year, Southwestern Ontario |
3,400+ |
|
Projected new jobs a year, Northern Ontario |
Nearly 1,300 |
"The benefits of AI aren't confined to downtown Toronto," said Cameron Schuler, chief commercialization officer and vice-president of industry innovation at the Vector Institute.
Adoption, however, is uneven. Glenda Crisp, president and CEO of the Vector Institute in Toronto, wrote in the institute's 2025–26 annual report that small and mid-sized businesses have been slower to adopt AI than larger enterprises. She called closing that gap "our defining challenge and our greatest opportunity." The report also said 75% of Ontario companies are now executing on their AI vision, up five points year over year.
Worker readiness lags as well. The 2026 TD AI Insights Report found only 37% of Canadian workers say their employer has provided adequate AI training, as HRD Canada noted in its coverage of the AI skills gap in Canada, which is widening as worker confidence lags.
The Ontario funding follows Ottawa’s national AI strategy that puts workforce transformation at the centre and the recently launched National AI Literacy Initiative for workers and job seekers.
