Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute is a research institute in Montreal, Quebec, specializing in Machine learning and Deep learning. Founded in 1993 by Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award winner and a pioneer of deep learning, Mila has grown into one of the world's largest academic AI research hubs. By 2022, it comprised approximately 1,000 students and researchers and 100 faculty members. Alongside Alberta's Amii and Toronto's Vector Institute, Mila is a key pillar of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.
History
Mila originated as the Laboratoire d'informatique des systèmes adaptatifs (LISA) at the Université de Montréal, founded by Yoshua Bengio in 1993. The institute also traces its roots to the Reasoning and Learning Lab (RL-Lab) at McGill University, established in 2001 and co-directed by professors Prakash Panangaden, Doina Precup, Joëlle Pineau, and Jackie Chi Kit Cheung. In 2017, Mila was formally established as a partnership between the Université de Montréal and McGill University, with École Polytechnique de Montréal and HEC Montréal as additional partners.
In December 2020, Mila partnered with IBM to accelerate AI and machine learning research using open-source technology. The collaboration integrated Mila's open-source software Oríon with IBM's Watson Machine Learning Accelerator, an AI model training and inference tool offered to businesses.
Notable Researchers
Beyond Yoshua Bengio, Mila's faculty includes Joëlle Pineau and Doina Precup, both prominent in reinforcement learning and AI. Notable alumni include Marc Bellemare (MSc 2007, RL-Lab), Hugo Larochelle (PhD 2009, LISA), and Ian Goodfellow (PhD 2014, LISA), the latter known for inventing generative adversarial networks.
Research Activities
Research at Mila is largely focused on deep learning and reinforcement learning, but spans a wide range of topics. Key areas include generative models, natural language processing, meta-learning, computer vision, and reinforcement learning. Mila also explores applications of AI to climate change and COVID-19 research, as well as foundational topics such as Artificial general intelligence, superintelligence, AI-alignment, AGI governance, and frontier models.
The institute is known for its contributions to open-source tools, including Theano, one of the earliest deep learning frameworks, and more recent projects like Myia, a Python deep learning framework, and Baby-AI, a platform for simulating language learning with human interaction.
Board of Directors
Mila's strategic directions are overseen by a Board of Directors that includes academics, industry leaders, and government observers. Members include Alexandre Le Bouthillier, Anne-Marie Hubert, Benoit Boulet, Caroline Aubé, Eugénie Brouillet, Frédéric Bouchard, Josée Morin, Magaly Charbonneau, Marie-Josée Hébert, Martha Crago, Mathieu Gervais, Pierre Boivin, and Valerie Pisano. Yoshua Bengio serves as an observer and scientific director.
Educational and Industry Engagement
Mila serves as both a research and educational institution, offering postdoctoral and internship positions and providing a research environment for students pursuing master's and PhD degrees in machine learning. The institute maintains numerous partnerships with private companies, facilitating the transfer of cutting-edge AI research into practical applications.