Canada's Sovereign AI Platform for Scientific Discovery
Accelerating Research from Permafrost to Fusion
NORAI integrates Canada's national scientific datasets, research laboratories, and high-performance computing infrastructure into a unified, secure platform, enabling breakthrough discoveries while maintaining complete data sovereignty.
The Strategic Imperative
Closing the AI Infrastructure Gap
- The U.S. DOE Genesis initiative has committed $3B+ and 200 MW of dedicated compute capacity for 2026–2030
- China's 'New Generation AI 2030' operates three integrated closed-loop science platforms with full data sovereignty
- Canadian researchers currently spend 40–60% of their time on data acquisition and preparation rather than discovery
- Without a national platform, Canada risks losing research talent and competitive advantage in critical sectors
NORAI provides the infrastructure to close this gap within 24 months.
Strategic Research Initiatives
Demonstrated Impact Across Critical Sectors
PermafrostGPT
High-resolution predictive modeling for northern infrastructure resilience. Machine learning models trained on 40+ years of ground temperature data to forecast permafrost degradation at 1-km resolution.
Impact: Projected savings: $8–12B in infrastructure protection across NWT and Yukon
MapleFusion
Accelerated materials discovery for fusion reactor components. AI-driven simulation reduces magnet and plasma-facing material design cycles from 5 years to 6 months.
Impact: Enabling pathway to commercial fusion by 2035
Pan-Canadian Cancer Moonshot
Federated learning across provincial cancer registries while maintaining strict data governance. Privacy-preserving AI identifies novel immunotherapy targets without centralizing patient data.
Impact: 3 novel therapeutic targets identified; $2B+ projected healthcare savings
Critical Minerals Initiative
AI-powered geological analysis combining satellite imagery, geophysical surveys, and historical data to identify economically viable rare earth and lithium deposits.
Impact: 10 new deposit candidates; $15B+ potential export revenue
Borealis Climate Twin
Digital twin of Canada's Arctic and boreal ecosystems. Daily 1-km resolution forecasts for sea ice extent, wildfire risk, and ecosystem changes through 2035.
Impact: $5B+ annual reduction in climate-related disaster costs
Platform Architecture
Five Integrated Layers for Sovereign AI
National Semantic Layer
Enterprise knowledge graph with 50M+ scientific entities. Multilingual support (EN/FR/Inuktitut) with standardized ontologies across all federal research agencies.
Production: 7M entities indexedFederated Data Lakehouse
Distributed sovereign object storage across four geographic zones (Montréal–Toronto–Edmonton–Yellowknife). CCORE-compliant with automatic data residency enforcement.
Architecture validatedSecure Multi-Party Compute
Privacy-preserving computation using OpenMPC protocols. SCION-based secure networking with consent-as-code governance tokens for granular access control.
Pilot: 3 provinces, Q1 2026Borealis Model Family
Science-specialized foundation models (8B → 70B → 671B parameters). Continual pre-training exclusively on Canadian scientific literature and datasets.
Borealis-8B: December 2025NORAI Studio
End-to-end research automation interface. Natural language to experiment design to robotic laboratory execution with full provenance tracking.
Integration: 4 partner labsCanadian AI Ecosystem
Building a National Network for Scientific AI
NORAI brings together Canada's leading AI institutions, world-class universities, and innovative companies to create an integrated research ecosystem.
Proposed National AI Institutes
Canada's three national AI institutes would provide foundational research capabilities and talent pipelines.
Proposed Research Universities
Leading Canadian universities would contribute domain expertise and next-generation talent.
Proposed National Compute Infrastructure
Canada's national high-performance computing network would provide the computational backbone for AI workloads.
Proposed Federal Research Organizations
National laboratories and agencies would provide critical infrastructure and domain datasets.
Proposed Canadian Technology Companies
Canadian companies across AI, cloud, cybersecurity, quantum, and health tech sectors creating a Made-in-Canada technology ecosystem.
Join the Mission
Help build Canada's sovereign AI infrastructure for scientific discovery. We're actively seeking partnerships with research institutions, government agencies, and industry leaders.
Become a Partner
Join our network of research institutions, universities, and government agencies.
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