Open Letter for an Applied Computing Institute

The Honourable Evan Solomon

409 Parliament street

Toronto, Ontario

M5A 3A1

Dear Mr. Solomon,

RE: Canada Needs a National Research Institute to Stop the "Brain Drain"

All my friends are geniuses and they're leaving Canada.

I'm a soon-to-graduate PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Like many of my colleagues, I'm disillusioned with the current state of the research and technology ecosystem here. We spend upwards of six years developing our skills here in Canada developing the latest advances in computing, only to find that there's nowhere in Canada to meaningfully apply them after we graduate.

I came here from the United States, and like many of my colleagues, I want to stay here, but frankly speaking, the options are barren compared to elsewhere. This isn't just the sentiment of graduate students; I've seen it firsthand during my internships at U.S. tech companies including Google, Amazon, Nvidia, and Adobe. Students from the University of Waterloo (who you'll often encounter at those internships) have a saying: "California or bust." This should not be the case.

Canada has produced some of the world's top researchers. Two of the three "Godfathers of AI"–Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio–are Canadian. Why, then, isn't the expression "Canada or bust"?

Canada is missing the environment that once fostered Bell Labs – the birthplace of the transistor and laser – and Silicon Valley – the continued home of computing innovation in the age of AI – both of which were built on decades of sustained government investment in research and education. Canada has shown this ambition before: Nortel and BlackBerry invested heavily in R&D, and Avro Canada positioned Canada as a world leader in aerospace. But when these institutions collapsed, much of that talent flooded south, leaving a lasting gap in Canada's tech ecosystem.

To rebuild that foundation, Canada needs a national, independent research institute dedicated to advancing computer science, engineering, and emerging technologies – one that attracts and retains top talent while transforming long-horizon research into tangible technologies, nurturing Canadian-owned startups, and fueling the growth of domestic industries. The goal is not just to invent the next breakthrough, but to ensure it is developed, built, and scaled in Canada, securing our leadership in AI, cybersecurity, and other emerging technologies.

Existing programs like CIFAR, the Vector Institute, and Mila are vital, but they function more as granting agencies or university affiliates as opposed to centralized research organizations. A national institute built for applied discovery would bridge deep research and real-world innovation, generating long-term value for Canada. International examples such as France's Inria and Germany's Max Planck Institutes demonstrate how sustained public investment yields patents, startups, as well as industry partnerships.

This is an ambitious goal, but it meets the magnitude of the challenges Canada faces right now: productivity stagnation, and the race to lead in AI, robotics, and sustainable tech. As the government invests in infrastructure, it's equally important to invest in its people and institutions that give our brightest minds a reason to stay. Too long has Canada served as a stepping stone for the brilliant. It should be their permanent home.

Me and my friends (who are the next Hintons and Bengios) want to stay in Canada, but we need your help to do it. We'd love to meet and share our ideas for how this institute will make it happen.

Best,

Ty Trusty and Friends

Sign the Letter

Signatories

  1. Ty Trusty, PhD student, University of Toronto
  2. Otman Benchekroun, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  3. Vishnu Nittoor, MSc Student, University of Toronto
  4. Karthik Mahadevan, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  5. Zhecheng Wang, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  6. Kinjal Parikh, PhD student, University of Toronto
  7. Yue Chang, PhD student, University of Toronto
  8. Yuta Noma, PhD student, University of Toronto
  9. Mian Wei, Postdoctoral Researcher, Carnegie Mellon University
  10. João Pedro Vasconcelos Teixeira, PhD student, University of Toronto
  11. Karran Pandey, PhD Student , University of Toronto
  12. David Levin, Associate Professor , University of Toronto
  13. Abhishek Madan, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  14. Alvin Shi, PhD Student, Yale University
  15. Zihan Ling, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  16. Qimin Chen, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  17. Yixin Chen, PhD student, University of Toronto
  18. Wenzhangzhi Guo, PhD student, University of Toronto
  19. Esther Lin, PhD student, University of Toronto
  20. Felix Taubner, PhD student, University of Toronto
  21. Sarah Kushner, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California, Santa Barbara
  22. Ryan Schmidt, Founder / CEO, GradientSpace Corp.
  23. Mengfei Liu, PhD student, University of Toronto
  24. Patrick Yung Kang Lee, PhD student , University of Toronto
  25. Matthew Varona, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  26. Leping Qiu, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  27. Vismay Modi, Researcher, Nvidia
  28. Jonathan Panuelos, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  29. Leo Hanxu, PhD student, University of Waterloo
  30. Jeb Thomas-Mitchell, Master's Student, University of Toronto
  31. Bogdan Pikula, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  32. Ryusuke Sugimoto, Postdoc Researcher / Former PhD student, Institute of Science and Technology Austria / University of Waterloo
  33. Leili Goli, PhD student, University of Toronto
  34. Andrea Tagliasacchi, Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University
  35. Quoc-Minh Ton-That, PhD student, École de technologie supérieure
  36. Loïc Nassif, PhD Student, McGill University
  37. Yosr Takouti, Master’s Student, ÉTS
  38. Wylliam Cantin Charawi, M.Sc.A, École de Technologie Supérieure
  39. Jyler Menard, PhD student, Concordia University
  40. Xiangyu Kong, PhD student, McGill University
  41. Cedric Martens, PhD student, Université de Montréal
  42. Derek Nowrouzezahrai, Full Professor, McGill University / Mila
  43. Hsueh-Ti Derek Liu, Research Scientist, Roblox
  44. Thomas Peschlow, MSc student, Université de Montréal
  45. Peter Yichen Chen, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia
  46. Nicholas Ioannidis, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  47. Joël Pelletier-Guénette, Master's student, École de technologie supérieure
  48. Eitan Grinspun, Professor and Associate Chair, University of Toronto
  49. Chrystiano Barbosa de Souza Araújo, Senior Research Scientist, ROBLOX
  50. Antoine Boucher, Master Student, École de technologie supérieure
  51. Hung Yu Ling, ML Engineer, Electronic Arts
  52. Seth Taylor, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Saskatchewan
  53. Daniele Reda, Applied Scientist / Former PhD Student, Wayve / University of British Columbia
  54. Aditya Vora, PhD Student, Simon Fraser University
  55. Michael Xu, MSc Student, Simon Fraser University
  56. Ahmed Magd Aly Shehata, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  57. Aditya Vora, PhD Student, Simon Fraser University
  58. Zhen Li, Master student, Simon Fraser University
  59. Seyed Alireza Moazenipourasil, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  60. Zhiyun Peng, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  61. Sebastian Dille, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  62. Maria Taktasheva, PhD Student , Simon Fraser University
  63. Shrisudhan Govindarajan, PhD Student, Simon Fraser University
  64. Qiushi Lin, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  65. Luwei Yang, Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Apple Inc.
  66. Hong Huang, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  67. Hou In Ivan Tam, PhD student, Simon Fraser University
  68. Michael Lu, PhD Student, Simon Fraser University
  69. Kian Hosseinkhani, Master's Student , Simon Fraser University Graphics Union Vision (GrUVI) Group
  70. Aida Jordão, PhD, Adjunct Professor, York University
  71. Yasaman Etesam, Postdoctoral Researcher, Simon Fraser University
  72. Matheus de Moraes Cavazotti, PhD Student, École de Technologie Supérieure
  73. Chenbo Jiang, PhD student, McGill
  74. Gurpreet Singh Mukker, Undergraduate Student and Researcher, University of Toronto
  75. Dorsa Rohani, Machine Learning Engineer Intern, Computer Science Student, Tenstorrent, University of Toronto
  76. Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, Professor, University of Toronto
  77. Parsa Pazhooheshy, PhD student, University of Toronto
  78. Jianzhong You, Phd student, University of Toronto
  79. Pawan Kumar Sanjaya , PhD student , University of Toronto
  80. Sheza Munir, PhD student, University of Toronto
  81. Harsh Kumar, PhD student, University of Toronto
  82. Aditya Shukla, MScAC Student, University of Toronto
  83. Blaine Lewis, PhD Studen, University of Toronto
  84. Abdus Shaikh, Undergraduate student, University of Toronto
  85. Hossein Goli, PhD Student , University of Toronto
  86. Jiankun Wei, Master student, University of Toronto
  87. Andreas Burger, PhD student, University of Toronto, Vector Institute
  88. Ye He, Postdoctoral Researcher, Georgia Institute of Technology
  89. Silvia Sellán, Assistant Professor, Columbia University
  90. Farhan Samir, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toronto
  91. Mohamed Ahmed, Undergraduate student , University of Toronto
  92. Kourosh Darvish, Scientist, University of Toronto (Acceleration Consortium)
  93. Amey Pore, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto
  94. Kumar Abhishek, PhD Student, Simon Fraser University
  95. Matthew Georgy, MSc Student, Université de Montréal
  96. Umangi Jain, PhD student, University of Toronto
  97. Ryan Smith, Phd student, University of British Columbia
  98. Mara Solen, PhD student, The University of British Columbia
  99. Ali Falahati, MMath , University of Waterloo
  100. Paul Gries, Professor, Teaching Stream, University of Toronto
  101. Chenxinran Shen , PhD student , University of Toronto
  102. Georgianna Lin, Postdoctoral Researcher, Columbia University
  103. Jeremy Xie, Undergraduate student, University of Toronto
  104. Chenxi Liu, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toronto
  105. Robin Swanson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto
  106. Mohammad Moshtaghifar, MSc Student, University of British Columbia
  107. Zixin Zhao, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  108. Kevin McKinnon, Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toronto
  109. Nicholas Pellegrino, PhD Student, University of Waterloo
  110. Richard Zhang, Full Professor, Simon Frasier University
  111. Minh Bui, PhD Student, Simon Fraser University
  112. Amirmojtaba Sabour, PhD student , University of Toronto
  113. Ismail Benchekroun, Senior Health Information Analyst, Toronto Public Health
  114. Ivan Beschatnikh, Associate Professor, Computer Science / University of British Columbia
  115. Rubia Reis Guerra, PhD student, University of British Columbia
  116. Firas Moosvi, Data Science Academic Director, Lecturer, University of British Columbia
  117. Matt Oddo, PhD candidate, University of British Columbia
  118. Tim Zhou, MSc student, University of British Columbia
  119. Gautam Luhana, PhD student, University of British Columbia
  120. Carter Fang, PhD student, University of Toronto
  121. Dylan Green, PhD Student , University of British Columbia
  122. Paulette Koronkevich, PhD student, University of British Columbia
  123. Matthew Niedoba, PhD Student, University of British Columbia
  124. Ziyang Jin, PhD student, University of Toronto
  125. Fanny Chevalier, Associate Professor, University of Toronto
  126. Harshinee Sriram, Phd student, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  127. Nguyen Phong Hoang, Assistant Professor, The University of British Columbia
  128. Donney Fan, PhD Student, University of British Columbia
  129. Yun Chen, PhD student, University of Toronto
  130. Cassandre Hamel, MSc Student, University of Montreal
  131. Vladyslav Nekriach, Software Engineer, Alumina Labs / University of Toronto alumni
  132. Kateryna Nekhomiazh , ex-MSc Student, University of Toronto
  133. Yanze Li, PhD student, University of British Columbia
  134. Jasper Yujin Geer, MSc Student, University of British Columbia
  135. Larissa Savitsky, PhD student , University of British Columbia
  136. Kushagra Agrawal, Undergraduate student, University of Toronto
  137. Thomas Pasquier, Assistant Professor, The University of British Columbia
  138. Nodir Kodirov, Staff Researcher, Huawei Canada
  139. Ioan Andrei Barsan, Staff Scientist, Waabi AI
  140. Puneet Mehrotra, PhD student,, University of British Columbia
  141. Yuri Kim, MSc student, University of British Columbia
  142. Finn Hackett, PhD Student, University of British Columbia
  143. Bingjian Huang, PhD student, University of Toronto
  144. Mohammad Nabizadeh, Postdoctoral Researcher, MIT
  145. Hossein Feiz, PhD student , ETS
  146. Hossam Saeed, PhD student, McGill University
  147. Yuanyuan Tao, PhD student, McGill University / Mila
  148. Brooke Dolny, MMath Student, University of Waterloo
  149. Yunze Wei, MSc student, University of Toronto
  150. Melissa Katz, PhD student, McGill University
  151. Dinesh K. Pai, Professor, University of British Columbia
  152. Jessica Bo, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  153. Raeid Saqur, Postdoctoral Researcher at Oxford, Vector Institute, UofT PhD (CS), University of Toronto
  154. Setareh Cohan, PhD student, University of British Columbia
  155. Saeid Naderiparizi, PhD student, University of British Columbia
  156. Shubhaankar Sharma, Undergraduate Research Intern, University of British Columbia
  157. Matthew Avolio, MMath, University of Waterloo
  158. Alireza Mousavi-Hosseini, PhD Student, University of Toronto
  159. Gabrielle Browne, Undergraduate Student, University of Toronto
  160. Benyamin Ghaseminia, M. Sc. Graduate, University of Alberta