EXFO, a Quebec company specializing in testing, monitoring and analytics for the telecommunications sector, is set to establish a 5G Center of Excellence in Montreal and create 50 specialized jobs, most located in the city. Funding for the initiative is provided in the form of a $15.9 million grant by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada as part of its Strategic Innovation Fund.

“We are delighted to receive this funding from the federal government, through which EXFO will leverage advanced cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to accelerate the development of solutions to produce more accurate data, and to predict and automatically detect problems and outages in 5G networks,” said Philippe Morin, chief executive officer of EXFO. “Ultimately, our innovations will help service providers in Canada and beyond deploy their 5G networks with unprecedented speed and efficiency.”

The center will offer job opportunities for researchers, data scientists, and software and telecommunications specialists in the areas of 5G, AI, machine learning, and cloud computing.

“Canada’s AI sector is already world-class and will get even better with the investment announced today,” declared Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, in a press release. “Our government will continue to promote and accelerate the development of innovative solutions that generate economic growth and provide jobs for Canadians. That’s why we’re contributing to projects like this, which will create one of the world’s first AI-based automated networking solutions for 5G technology. We will always support technologies developed here at home and ensure that Canada remains a world leader in this field.”

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