Projects

Please join our weekly info session (Thursdays 15h EST), to validate your project meets your selection criteria and meet with our Investment Team who will suggest next steps.

There is no minimum or maximum investment allocated per project. For specific inquiries about project funding, please contact the Scale AI team.

While there is no maximum duration, projects typically last from 12 to 18 months.

However, there is no maximum duration for a project; however, all projects must be completed on the timeline set out in the project agreement.

Scale AI funds projects that contribute to our strategic objectives, such as AI adoption and the commercialization of AI-based products. You can learn more about the types of projects we fund here.

We select projects based on the following criteria:

1. In-Scope: Does the project align with SCALE AI’s strategy of boosting industry Productivity by leveraging AI technologies to improve Value Chains?
2. Collaboration: Is the project collaborative, with meaningful contributions and benefits for multiple stakeholders in the Value Chain, and including at least 1 SME (<500 FTEs)?
3. Incremental: Will incremental AI development will be created in this project (vs existing solutions)? What foreground IP will be created? How is the project different from regular business undertakings?
4. Readiness: Have executives endorsed the project? Has work been done to validate the project’s technical feasibility, e.g., data assessment, POC? Is there sufficient AI expertise in the consortium to deliver & deploy the solution?

Scoring criteria are divided into four categories:

1. Team and project management plan (25%)
2. Business impact (20%)
3. Strategic alignment to Scale AI’s strategic plan (30%)
4. Ecosystem impact (25%)

In order to be considered for funding, a project must have more than one participant and at least one participant must be a SME.

You can learn about funding and more by joining one of our twice-weekly information webinars. Sessions are held every Wednesday and Thursday at 3:00 p.m. EST. Register here .

For those projects that are selected, a predefined portion of eligible project expenses are reimbursed on a quarterly basis. Eligible expenses are those that are considered essential to the project. These include:

• Salaries, wages, or contracts for carrying out project activities
• Costs of purchasing or renting equipment, supplies, or services critical to the project
• Dissemination costs vital for performance of the project
• Capital expenditures linked to the objectives of the project agreement and vital for the success of the project

You can learn about funding and more by joining one of our twice-weekly information webinars. Sessions are held every Wednesday and Thursday at 3:00 p.m. EST. Register here.

Yes. Scale AI is committed to developing the AI ecosystem by encouraging collaboration between its members. As a member you’ll have the opportunity to connect with other potential project partners, both through the Scale AI platform and at networking events hosted by Scale AI.

Scale AI funding is available to value chain operators and AI solutions providers across a broad range of sectors, including but not limited to:

• Consumer goods and retail
• Industrial goods and manufacturing
• Transport and logistics
• Healthcare
• Infrastructure and construction

Scale AI is committed to providing a business-friendly and efficient application process. The length of the selection process depends mainly on project teams’ responsiveness and speed of iteration on feedback provided by the Scale AI investment team. Once a comprehensive, detailed submission is provided, our selection process will take about one month to complete.

No. The money invested by Scale AI is in the form of a grant. You do not need to repay it.

Non-Scale AI members can submit a project for evaluation, but if your project is selected, you must become a member in order to receive funding. Scale AI members also benefit from guidance from the Scale AI investment and intellectual property team, and can tap into opportunities to work with other Scale AI members as potential clients and service providers.

The project members have complete flexibility to decide who will own the IP created in their projects. Neither the Government nor Scale AI will own any of the IP.

No, you do not have to give anyone outside the project access or permission to use your IP or data. But remember – Scale AI’s mandate is to develop Canada’s AI ecosystem so, in selecting new projects for investment, we assess how you propose that the new IP and data generated in your project can benefit more than just the project participants.

For example, can the results be made generically available for use by other Scale AI members who are not your competitors? Or, is there another way your project will provide concrete benefits to other Scale AI members, such as through sharing lessons learned or other experiences developed in your project?

We understand that IP is complicated and that you may have lots of questions. That’s why we have an experienced IP lawyer on staff to help coach you. Our IP lawyer is not a replacement for getting your own solid IP legal advice, but together with our investment directors, Scale AI’s IP lawyer can help you put together a project submission that can protect your IP and still find ways to allow your IP to be safely leveraged by others in the Scale AI ecosystem.

A key piece of IP usually created in Scale AI projects are the trained AI models. These can be protected as secrets (sometimes called trade secrets, confidential information or proprietary information) or some choose to make them available to others as open-source software (OSS) or by other means of publishing, such as through white papers. It is also possible in some circumstances to file for patent protection of AI-related inventions, such as methods of training models or other methods relating to developing, training, validating or using AI models.

The best approach for protecting your project’s IP will depend heavily on (i) your business model (how you make money) and (ii) the nature of the new IP created in the project. Our experienced IP lawyer is available to help you understand the options.

A full answer to this question will depend on the details of your IP and your situation, however all types of IP (e.g. trade secrets, confidential/proprietary information, patents, copyrights, etc.) can be licensed to others, whether through open-source licenses or regular commercial licensing. In legal terms, “licensing” just refers to granting permission to someone to use your IP.

The commercial terms that accompany the license (e.g. whether it is open-source, or there are royalties, or a cross-license granted back, time or geography limits, market restrictions, or other costs or restrictions) can be tailored to meet just about any business need.

No. While we will encourage you to use all available IP tools available to protect your IP (because it just makes good business sense to do so!), you remain in control of how you choose to protect your IP.

You should never discuss or disclose confidential or proprietary information to potential project partners (or others!) without first having a signed non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in place. Second, even once an NDA is in place, use the “need-to-know” principle to guide what you disclose to the other company. Third, it is always a good idea to mark each page of sensitive documents with a “Confidential Information of [Your Company]” marking to make it clear to others that the document must be handled confidentially (this step alone, however, is not usually enough to protect you).

These 3 simple steps, together, will make all the difference to protecting your confidential information.

Although an NDA should be entered before disclosing your confidential information to anyone, rest assured that Scale AI will protect your submission as confidential even without an NDA. That said, if you would like us to sign an NDA, we will be happy to enter a suitable NDA covering your proposal.

You can reach Scale AI by the following link. We also hold twice-weekly information webinars with our investment directors, to offer you a first touchpoint and to explain in greater detail how Scale AI might support your project. Sessions are held every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. EST. You can register for a webinar here.