Canada and AI Sovereignty

The concept of AI sovereignty is being discussed in many countries, but what does it really mean? And, more, specifically, what does it mean for Canada. At this event, Munk School fellows Sean Mullin and Jaxson Khan will discuss their new report: Sovereign By Design: Strategic Options for Canadian AI Sovereignty.

 

They will be joined by Bruce Schneier, whose recent op ed Canada Needs Nationalized, Public AI appeared in the Globe and Mail, and Janice Stein, Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

 

 

Jaxson Khan is a technology strategist and policy leader who has spent over a decade driving innovation across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. He is CEO of Aperture AI, a strategic consultancy helping major corporations and governments navigate and capitalize on AI and emerging technologies, a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and a Board Director of the Human Feedback Foundation. Previously, Jaxson served as Senior Policy Advisor to Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, where he helped design the $2.4 billion AI Sovereign Compute Strategy.

 

Sean Mullin is an economist and policy leader with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of technology, economic strategy, and public policy. He is a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, focusing on AI policy and the economics of AI. Sean previously served as Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, and founded and led the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship, building it into Canada's leading innovation policy think tank. He holds an MBA from Oxford University, an MA in Economics from McGill, and an Honours BSc from the University of Toronto.

 

Janice Stein is renowned as one of Canada’s most respected national and international experts on world politics. She is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and the founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario. She is an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

 

Her research sits at the intersection of cognitive science, psychology, and international politics as she focuses on decision making and strategy. The author of eight books and more than a hundred articles, her most recent work is on the management of escalation and the psychological, institutional, and political factors that explain surprise.  Her latest research focuses on the intersection of geopolitics and technology.

 

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a “security guru” by The Economist. He is the author of over 14 books—including his latest, A Hacker’s Mind—as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter “Crypto-Gram” and his blog “Schneier on Security” are read by over 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and AccessNow; and an Advisory Board Member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and VerifiedVoting.org. He is the Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc.