Insider Brief
- Canada and Germany announced joint funding of up to CAD $300 million for LawZero, the Montréal-based nonprofit founded by Yoshua Bengio, to advance its “Scientist AI” safe-by-design approach and expand into Europe with a new Berlin office.
- The funding will grow LawZero’s international research team, secure computing infrastructure, and establish sovereign compute capacity in Canada through a partnership with Hypertec and 5C.
- Scientist AI is designed to reason transparently and produce evidence-based outputs without pursuing its own goals, positioned as an alternative to autonomous frontier AI systems and intended to provide guardrails, accelerate scientific discovery, and improve understanding of AI risk.
PRESS RELEASE — At ALL IN, Canada and Germany have announced funding of up to CAD $300 million for LawZero to develop a fundamentally new form of advanced, safe and capable AI.
The rapid acceleration of AI brings important risks, as evidenced by recent incidents of systems crossing safety boundaries. The world urgently needs alternatives to ensure that AI systems are developed in ways that are trustworthy enough to be adopted, uphold sovereign values and protect human joy and endeavour. This joint investment from Canada and Germany signals strong confidence in LawZero’s technical approach and in the critical role it can play to answer the urgent need for sovereign leadership in next-generation AI systems.
The funding will power the next phase of LawZero’s technical roadmap, growing its international scientific research team and securing world-class computing infrastructure. These investments will allow LawZero to expand its operations into Europe with the establishment of an office in Berlin, Germany, which will contribute to its rich innovation ecosystem.
As part of this next phase of growth, LawZero will establish a dedicated, sovereign compute infrastructure in Canada, in partnership with Canadian partners Hypertec and 5C. The collaboration will provide LawZero with the advanced computing capacity required to pursue its research at scale, while anchoring critical AI infrastructure, expertise and capabilities in Canada.
LawZero’s flagship approach, called Scientist AI, treats reliability as a core capability, centering on developing a fundamentally new form of AI designed to be trustworthy and safe from inception. Unlike current frontier AI systems designed to act autonomously and pursue their own goals, Scientist AI is being developed to reason transparently and provide reliable, evidence-based outputs unbiased by goals of its own. As LawZero builds towards safe advanced AI, Scientist AI is expected to provide guardrails for today’s frontier models, accelerate scientific breakthroughs, and advance understanding of the risks posed by AI and how to avoid them.
Quotes
“Canada’s future in artificial intelligence depends on developing advanced systems that reflect our values and protect our interests. By investing in homegrown innovation like Scientist AI, we are strengthening Canada’s sovereign AI capacity and ensuring that the next generation of AI is built safely, responsibly, and on Canadian terms.”
– The Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
“Canada’s economy grows when we support the kind of innovation that helps our industries compete and succeed. By investing in LawZero, a Canadian organization advancing safe, high-impact AI, we are building domestic capacity, supporting good jobs, and helping to ensure that advanced technologies are developed responsibly and in ways that benefit Canadians.”
– The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions
“With ‘Scientist AI’, we are deepening the proven partnership between Canada and Germany. This project pursues a novel, mathematically grounded approach: to develop an inherently safe artificial intelligence. The safe-by-design model offers an alternative to potentially uncontrollable autonomous AI agents. It works purely on the basis of facts — like an objective scientist — and does not pursue its own goals. By building advanced AI research capabilities in Canada and Europe, we are strengthening our technological sovereignty.”
– Dr. Karsten Wildberger, Federal Minister for Digitalization and Government Modernization of Germany
“As AI risks multiply and accelerate, our priority must be building solutions to make this technology safe, and providing alternative models people can genuinely trust. Recent events demonstrate that safety is itself a core capability: scientific innovation and public safety can and must advance together. LawZero’s mission is to address this critical scientific challenge by developing reliable, safe-by-design AI. This backing from Canada and Germany is a defining moment, moving us into the next phase of developing safe AI on a global scale while improving both nations’ technological sovereignty.”
– Yoshua Bengio, Founder and Scientific Director, LawZero
“AI is advancing at a pace the world has never seen and has the potential to transform the world for the better. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure we can enable AI safely, and I believe Canada has a role to play in making it happen. Hypertec is proud to build, along with our partner 5C, the sovereign, world-class compute infrastructure that enables Law Zero to pursue safe-by-design AI on Canadian soil. This is exactly the kind of partnership between government, capital and Canadian industry required to achieve the potential AI promises.”
– Simon Ahdoot, CEO Hypertec Group
“Breakthrough AI research needs infrastructure that can perform at the same level. 5C is proud to provide Law Zero with the dedicated compute capacity required to advance its work at scale, here in Canada.”
– Jonathan Ahdoot, CEO 5C
About LawZero
Headquartered in Montréal, LawZero is a not-for-profit startup developing technical solutions for highly-capable, safe-by-design AI systems. Founded by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, LawZero bridges fundamental AI safety research with technical solutions development. The organization is governed by an independent Board of Directors and Global Advisory Council made up of international leaders, including Nike Foundation and Girl Effect founder Maria Eitel (Board Chair), former Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Stefan Löfven, author Yuval Noah Harari, former Rolls-Royce CEO Sir John Rose and Mila CEO Valerie Pisano. Initially incubated at Mila, LawZero’s work is backed by catalytic funding from philanthropy, including the Gates Foundation, Coefficient Giving, Schmidt Sciences, the Future of Life Institute, NVIDIA, and Jaan Tallinn via the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and from the governments of Canada and Germany.
To learn more about LawZero’s research, visit https://lawzero.org/en/research
