News
We are at Aerospace Week in Montreal where the theme topic is AI. Canada is making a major push in Artificial Intelligence, with support from the government and is looking to help smaller and medium size companies to innovate.
The use of AI has a foothold in aerospace, but needs additional innovation to face the challenge to feed the industry with talent. This is a major initiative of the government, and ensuring that Canada can attract talent worldwide.
Analysis
There are multiple areas within Aerospace where AI will provide differentiation and economic success. These include optimization of the supply chain, aircraft design, predicting failures, autonomous aircraft, and air traffic control optimization, among others.
AI will be a key element in the future of aerospace, and innovation is needed to move forward with advanced technologies. The fundamental building block is talent, as expertise in AI is in high demand globally. Canada must compete with innovative firms in Silicon Valley and Boston in North America for expertise in AI.
Insight
The key to long-term success in AI is the creation of intellectual property that can generate continuing revenues. Advanced systems that can optimize a supply chain, assist in aircraft design, provide the predictive capabilities to automatically analyze petabytes of “big data” from aircraft will provide value that can be capitalized on in the near term.
Smaller companies and entrepreneurs often are the source of innovative concepts and ideas, but need support in bringing them to market. The Canadian government and Province of Quebec have had a solid track record of supporting innovation in many areas, and have targeted AI as their next key technology for Quebec.
