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New NSERC-CSE funded partnership to support robust, secure, and safe artificial intelligence research project

General news Professors

July 15, 2024

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE) are pleased to announce the funding of a new Research Community to conduct unclassified research on cutting-edge technologies in areas of strategic importance to CSE and the Government of Canada, focusing on robust, secure, and safe artificial intelligence (AI).

Professor David Lie, from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Toronto and his 18 co-applicants, from four Canadian universities (University of Toronto, Concordia University, University of Waterloo and York University), have recently been awarded a total of $5.6 million over four years to support a large project entitled: “End-to-End Approach to Safe and Secure AI Systems." The goal of this Research Community is to develop techniques to solve many of the challenges associated with the use of these systems including the training of models in scenarios that lack reliable, labeled data and ensuring the security, robustness, fairness and interpretability of AI.

This is the first of four joint funding opportunities being offered by NSERC and CSE over the next five years, stemming from a new Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations to award Research Communities grants to Canadian university researchers. Each funding opportunity focuses on a different topic. The grants will be awarded through NSERC’s Alliance grants program.