AI for All · launched June 4, 2026

The strategy,
in numbers.

Canada's AI for All plan is a six-pillar national strategy with a $200-billion ambition. We turned the targets, the money, the companies and the map into something you can actually read.

The headline targets

Source: AI for All strategy, Government of Canada - announced June 4, 2026.

01 - The starting point

Canada helped invent AI. Now it has to use it.

The country has world-class talent, deep capital and a clean power grid - but it's among the slowest in its peer group to put AI to work. Here's the snapshot the strategy starts from.

Figures are from the strategy document. The $187B generative-AI estimate is a Microsoft/Accenture projection (2024) cited by the strategy, not a government forecast.

02 - The adoption gap

From about 12% to 60% by 2034.

Canada has world-class talent but is among the slowest in its peer group to adopt AI at scale. The strategy's whole economic case rests on closing that gap fast - a fivefold rise in eight years.

Business AI adoption, % of firmshover to inspect
Target path to 60% If current pace holds
  • The goal is a fivefold increase in business adoption by 2034.
  • Left to the current pace, adoption would reach roughly 28% - barely halfway.
  • Only 1 in 8 Canadian businesses formally uses AI today; 78% of the rest say they just don't see how it helps.

Endpoints (≈12% today, 60% by 2034) are official. The curve between them is illustrative.

03 - Where Canada stands

Strong on research. Slow on adoption.

The gap isn't talent - it's deployment. Among peer economies, the share of small businesses actually using AI puts Canada near the back.

  • Just ~8% of Canadian SMEs have adopted AI.
  • Nordic leaders run at 29–42%; Germany at 26%, France at 18%.
  • Canada helped invent modern AI - Hinton, Bengio and Sutton - yet trails on putting it to work.

Figures from the strategy document. "Nordic leaders" shown at the top of the 29–42% range.

AI adoption by businesses & SMEs% using AI
04 - Where the money goes

$2.1B in named new commitments.

Beyond the headline ambition, the strategy names specific programs. Each slice is one commitment - hover any of them to break it down.

Named new program commitments from the strategy document - not an exhaustive budget table. Shown separately: larger pools the plan leverages rather than new line items.

05 - The six pillars

What the plan actually does.

Six pillars sit under three values. Filter to see how trust, opportunity and sovereignty each get built.

06 - Five priority sectors

Where the bets are concentrated.

Five sectors act as focal points where investment can deliver both commercial success and sovereign resilience - with dual-use defence applications prioritised.

07 - Sovereign compute

850 megawatts by 2030 - scaling toward 2.3 gigawatts.

Sovereignty means Canadian data on Canadian infrastructure. A build-partner-buy approach backs a public supercomputer and domestic capacity - on a grid that's 83% non-emitting.

Targeted sovereign compute capacityramp to 2030 goal
  • Partnerships propose 850 MW by 2030, scaling up to 2.3 GW.
  • Building on more than $2B already committed to Canadian compute.
  • A world-leading public supercomputer for researchers and SMEs by 2031.
  • Canada CIFAR AI Chairs grow from 130 to nearly 200 researchers.

Capacity targets are from the strategy; interim-year values are illustrative. Canada is projected to need ~5.5 GW of commercial AI compute by 2030.

08 - On the map

Every province and territory.

AI activity isn't evenly spread. The national institutes anchor three hubs - Toronto, Montréal and Edmonton. Click a region to drill in.

Lower
Higher adoption

Regional intensity is illustrative sample data for this mockup.

09 - The Canadian AI stack

The companies that make it real.

Over 3,500 firms and 150,000 people already build AI in Canada. The strategy names them up and down the stack - from applications to the clean-power grid underneath.

AI already at work

The research anchors

10 - The roadmap

From consultation to 2034.

11 - The mandate

Built on what Canadians said.

Before a word was written, the largest public consultation in ISED's history asked Canadians how to get AI right.

Who took part, by sector% of respondents
  • Run as a 30-day online consultation in October 2025.
  • Heard from First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders, labour, arts and environmental groups.
  • The clearest message: move beyond pilots to real deployment that augments - not replaces - workers.

Sector shares are of the 1,860 respondents who indicated a sector.