> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence - URL: https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/vector-institute-for-artificial-intelligence/ - Published: 2026-03-31T16:56:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-03-31T16:57:37.000Z - Author: Liam Sturgess - Tags: Profiles, #docs, #organization, Organization, Non-Profit, Canada, #toc, Ontario, COVID-19 The **Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence** is a Canadian not-for-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. It is located in the West Building of the [MaRS Discovery District](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/MaRS-Discovery-District).[\[1\]](#fn1) ## History The Vector Institute was co-founded by a group including Geoffrey Hinton, Richard Zemel, Raquel Urtasun and Brendan Frey, launching on March 30, 2017.[\[1:1\]](#fn1)[\[2\]](#fn2)[\[3\]](#fn3) It was founded "with the aim of producing, attracting and retaining the finest talent in the world as part of a Canadian-rooted economic supercluster that will generate future discovery, opportunity, jobs and growth."[\[4\]](#fn4) ### COVID-19 On April 12, 2020, the Vector Institute announced it was repurposing "high-performance computing" NVIDIA graphics processing units to contribute to the Ontario Ministry of Health's Pandemic Threat Response (PANTHR) platform.[\[5\]](#fn5) On April 16, 2020, Roche announced the launch of its “Roche Data Science Coalition”, which included the Vector Institute as a collaborator, in order to work “with the global community to develop solutions to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.”[\[6\]](#fn6)[\[7\]](#fn7) On April 24, 2020, the Vector Institute held a webinar titled “[Innovating Through COVID-19 webinar - Digital Contact Tracing while Preserving Privacy: MyTrace.ca](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yANODJc3Hhw)” during which they launched a contact tracing application called MyTrace.[\[8\]](#fn8) It was led by Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a University of Toronto professor and faculty member at the Vector Institute.[\[9\]](#fn9) Additional participants included Ashleigh Tuite of the [Dalla Lana School of Public Health](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Dalla-Lana-School-of-Public-Health) and Garth Gibson, President and CEO of the Vector Institute.[\[10\]](#fn10) On September 16, 2021, the Vector Institute announced a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for all staff, contractors and visitors. The policy went into effect October 1, 2021, with those in non-compliance denied access to the facility and threatened with termination.[\[11\]](#fn11) On February 9, 2022, the Vector Institute announced that one of its researchers, Bo Wang, had contributed to the development of Viral AI, a genetic sequencing platform led by DNAstack and the COVID Cloud Supercluster Project. They described it as a "tool that identifies COVID-19 variants" and an "AI-enabled genotyping tool that can analyze viral genome data from a nasal swab."[\[12\]](#fn12) On February 11, 2022, the Vector Institute published a study titled "Using AI to Help Solve the Long COVID Puzzle", describing how Vector "applied natural language processing (NLP) techniques to over 460,000 Twitter posts by people who had self-reported long COVID to see if any patterns or signals would arise amidst the social media noise."[\[13\]](#fn13) On June 17, 2022, Chief Operations Officer Alan Veerman sent a memo to Vector Institute staff informing them that the institute's mandatory face mask policy was suspended.[\[14\]](#fn14) On Novembber 15, 2022, Research Director Graham Taylor and Veerman sent out a memo strongly recommending staff resume wearing face masks at the facility.[\[15\]](#fn15) On July 5, 2023, [Kids Help Phone](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Kids-Help-Phone) announced it had partnered with the Vector Institute to deploy an artificial intelligence program to analyze the contents of calls from young people seeking mental health assistance.[\[16\]](#fn16) ## Organization | Name | Position | Notes | | ----------------- | ----------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Garth Gibson | President & CEO[\[10:1\]](#fn10) | \- | | Ed Clark | Board Chair[\[4:1\]](#fn4) | \- | | Brendan Frey | Co-Founder[\[2:1\]](#fn2)[\[3:1\]](#fn3) | [Deep Genomics](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Deep-Genomics) | | Geoffrey Hinton | Chief Scientific Advisor[\[4:2\]](#fn4) | University of Toronto | | Alan Veerman | Chief Operations Officer[\[14:1\]](#fn14) | \- | | Scott Bonham | Board member[\[4:3\]](#fn4) | \- | | Vivek Goel | Board member[\[4:4\]](#fn4) | \- | | Mary Jo Haddad | Board member[\[4:5\]](#fn4) | \- | | Chaviva Hosek | Board member[\[4:6\]](#fn4) | \- | | Jordan Jacobs | Board member[\[4:7\]](#fn4) | \- | | Stephen Lake | Board member[\[4:8\]](#fn4) | \- | | Nadir Mohamed | Board member[\[4:9\]](#fn4) | \- | | Michael Serbinis | Board member[\[4:10\]](#fn4) | \- | | Pearl Sullivan | Board member[\[4:11\]](#fn4) | \- | | Terrence Sullivan | Board member[\[4:12\]](#fn4) | \- | | Shivon Zilis | Board member[\[4:13\]](#fn4) | \- | | Alán Aspuru-Guzik | Faculty[\[9:1\]](#fn9) | Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), MyTrace, University of Toronto | | Mark Daley | Faculty Affiliate[\[17\]](#fn17) | Chair of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) | | Laura Rosella | Faculty Affiliate[\[18\]](#fn18) | [Dalla Lana School of Public Health](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Dalla-Lana-School-of-Public-Health) (ICES), Banting & Best Diabetes Centre, Trillium Health Partners, Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, Population Health Analytics Laboratory, [Royal Society of Canada](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Royal-Society-of-Canada) (RSC), Institute for Better Health, Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM), Data Sciences Institute (DSI), Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society | ### Partners The Vector Institute is partnered with: - [Acceleration Consortium](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Acceleration-Consortium)[\[19\]](#fn19) - Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada[\[20\]](#fn20) - [GEMINI](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/GEMINI)[\[21\]](#fn21) - [Ontario's COVID-19 Genomics Rapid Response Coalition](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Ontarios-COVID-19-Genomics-Rapid-Response-Coalition) (ONCoV)[\[22\]](#fn22) Additionally, the Vector Institute is a donor to the University of Toronto's Boundless Campaign.[\[23\]](#fn23) #### Affiliated institutions Institutions formally affiliated with the Vector Institute include:[\[24\]](#fn24)[\[25\]](#fn25)[\[26\]](#fn26) - Brock University - [Carleton University](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Carleton-University) - Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) - Compute Ontario - Dalhousie University - Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences - Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital - Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) - Lakehead University - Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute - McMaster University - Ontario Institute for Cancer Research - Ontario Tech University (OTU) - Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics - Princess Margaret Cancer Centre - Queen's University - Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society - SickKids - Sinai Health System - St. Michael’s Hospital - Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre - Sunnybrook Research Institute - Toronto Metropolitan University - Toronto Rehabilitation Institute - Trillium Health Partners - Unity Health Toronto - University Health Network (UHN) - University of British Columbia (UBC) - University of Guelph - University of Ottawa - University of Toronto - University of Waterloo - University of Western Ontario (UWO) - University of Windsor - York University ### Funding The Vector Institute is funded by:[\[1:2\]](#fn1)[\[27\]](#fn27)[\[24:1\]](#fn24)[\[25:1\]](#fn25)[\[26:1\]](#fn26)[\[28\]](#fn28)[\[4:14\]](#fn4) - Accenture - Ada - Air Canada - Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII) - AltaML - Avidbots - Bank of Montreal (BMO) - Bell Canada - BenchSci - Blue J - [Boehringer Ingelheim](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Boehringer-Ingelheim) - Borealis AI - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) - Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) - Canadian National Railway (CN) - Canadian Tire - Canvass Analytics - [Chan Zuckerberg Initiative](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Chan-Zuckerberg-Initiative) (CZI) - Clearpath Robotics - Cohere - DarwinAI - [Deloitte](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Deloitte) - [Deep Genomics](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Deep-Genomics) - Dessa - EllisDon - Ernst & Young (EY) - FreshBooks - Georgian - GoldSpot Discoveries - Google - [Government of Canada](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/Government-of-Canada) - Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) - Intact Financial Corporation - Integrate.ai - KPMG - KT - League - Linamar - Loblaw Companies - Layer 6 - Magna International - Manulife - MindBridge - Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) - North - NVIDIA - Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) - Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities - Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade - Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (PCAIS) - PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) - Private AI - Riskfuel - Roche - ROSS Intelligence - Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) - Scotiabank - Shakudo - Shopify - Signal 1 - Stradigi AI - Sun Life Financial - Surgical Safety Technologies (SST) - TD Bank Group - TealBook - TELUS - Thales Group - Thalmic Labs - Thomson Reuters - TrojAI - University of Toronto - Wattpad - Wysdom ## COVID-19 policies - September 16, 2021: [COVID-19 Vaccination Policy](https://web.archive.org/web/20230705234539/https://vectorinstitute.ai/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/covid-19-vaccination-policy-september-16-online.pdf) - June 17, 2022: [COVID-19 Masking Requirements](https://web.archive.org/web/20230706202610/https://vectorinstitute.ai/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/covid-19-memo-20220617.pdf) - November 15, 2022: [COVID-19 Masking Recommendation](https://web.archive.org/web/20230706212335/https://vectorinstitute.ai/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/covid-19-memo-20221115.pdf) ## External links - [Campfire Wiki](https://www.campfire.wiki/doku.php?id=vector%5Finstitute%5Ffor%5Fartificial%5Fintelligence) - [Website](https://vectorinstitute.ai/) --- 1. *About.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref1) [↩︎](#fnref1:1) [↩︎](#fnref1:2) 2. *Company.* Deep Genomics. Retrieved May 2, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref2) [↩︎](#fnref2:1) 3. Robinson, J. (2017, October 31). *Six U of T researchers join Vector Institute.* University of Toronto. [↩︎](#fnref3) [↩︎](#fnref3:1) 4. Williams, K. (2017, March 30). *News release: New Artificial Intelligence Research Institute Launched in Toronto.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref4) [↩︎](#fnref4:1) [↩︎](#fnref4:2) [↩︎](#fnref4:3) [↩︎](#fnref4:4) [↩︎](#fnref4:5) [↩︎](#fnref4:6) [↩︎](#fnref4:7) [↩︎](#fnref4:8) [↩︎](#fnref4:9) [↩︎](#fnref4:10) [↩︎](#fnref4:11) [↩︎](#fnref4:12) [↩︎](#fnref4:13) [↩︎](#fnref4:14) 5. Williams, K. (2020, April 12). *Vector Institute to Support Provincial Efforts Against COVID-19 with Computing Infrastructure and Data Science Expertise.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. Wells, B., & Bozinov, D. (2020, April 16). *Roche Canada Launches Data Science Coalition to Advance COVID-19 Solutions.* Cision Newswire. [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. *Data Science Coalition Collaborators.* Roche Canada. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. Vector Institute. (2020, April 29). *Innovating Through COVID-19 webinar - Digital Contact Tracing while Preserving Privacy: MyTrace.ca.* YouTube. [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. Fraumeni, P. (2020, April 24). *U of T researcher aims to improve accuracy of COVID-19 contact tracing with MyTrace app.* University of Toronto. [↩︎](#fnref9) [↩︎](#fnref9:1) 10. *Digital Contact tracing while Preserving Privacy: The MyTrace.ca Project.* University of Toronto Department of Physics. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref10) [↩︎](#fnref10:1) 11. *COVID-19 Vaccination Policy.* (2021, September 16). Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref11) 12. Gormely, I. (2022a, February 9). *AI-enabled tool that identifies COVID-19 variants co-developed by Vector researcher Bo Wang.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref12) 13. Gormely, I. (2022, February 11). *AI analysis of Social Media data to help with treatment of long COVID.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref13) 14. Veerman, A. (2022, June 17). *COVID-19 Masking Requirements – June 2022.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref14) [↩︎](#fnref14:1) 15. Taylor, G., & Veerman, A. (2022, November 15). *COVID-19 Masking Recommendation – November 2022.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref15) 16. Ireland, N. (2023, July 5). *Kids Help Phone seeking help from AI tech to meet demand for mental health support.* CTV News Toronto; The Canadian Press. [↩︎](#fnref16) 17. *Mark Daley.* ICES. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref17) 18. *Laura Rosella.* Population Health Analytics Laboratory. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref18) 19. *Partners.* Acceleration Consortium. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref19) 20. *About Us.* Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet). Retrieved July 1, 2023 fom [↩︎](#fnref20) 21. *QI & Research Partners.* GEMINI. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from [↩︎](#fnref21) 22. *Home.* ONCoV. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from [↩︎](#fnref22) 23. *Donor Listing.* University of Toronto Boundless Campaign. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from [↩︎](#fnref23) 24. Clark, E., & Gibson, G. (2023). *2021-2022 Annual Report.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. [↩︎](#fnref24) [↩︎](#fnref24:1) 25. Gibson, G., & Clark, E. *April 2020 - March 2021 Annual Report.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref25) [↩︎](#fnref25:1) 26. Clark, E., & Gibson, G. *April 2019 - March 2020 Annual Report.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref26) [↩︎](#fnref26:1) 27. *Current Partners.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref27) 28. Clark, E., & Gibson, G. *Annual Report 2019.* Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from [↩︎](#fnref28) ## Further reading [Kids Help Phone Digitizes Mental HealthMeet the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a2/fe/a2fe3cea-8d77-4702-87d4-ff1fd8934d08/content/images/icon/White-Rose-Logo-Symbol--favicon--136.ico)White Rose IntelligenceLiam Sturgess![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a2/fe/a2fe3cea-8d77-4702-87d4-ff1fd8934d08/content/images/thumbnail/3335c158-beb2-4aa1-9798-3875fca26b82_1280x720-2.webp)](https://www.whiteroseintelligence.com/kids-help-phone-digitizes-mental-health/)