Program duration: 2026-2033
Artificial intelligence (AI) can help businesses improve productivity. It can increase efficiency, accelerate innovation, reduce risks and help organizations make better use of existing resources.
Despite AI's potential, the level of adoption in Canada remains low.
The AI for Productivity Challenge program aims to increase AI adoption across key Canadian sectors to improve productivity and support environmental sustainability.
Defining productivity
Productivity measures how efficiently organizations transform resources such as labour, capital and materials into valuable goods and services. In the short term, productivity gains can come from improved efficiency, reduced costs, and increased demand and revenue. In the medium term, productivity focuses on creating value, reducing risk, and improving quality and performance. Over time, productivity supports sustainable growth for industries and for the Canadian economy.
About the program
The AI for Productivity Challenge program helps bridge the gap between AI innovation and real-world industry adoption.
The program will focus on the intersections of AI, agriculture, clean technologies and manufacturing, where AI innovation can deliver the greatest value for industry.
The program brings together multidisciplinary research teams from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), industry, academia and government to:
- Develop AI and compute systems that are more environmentally sustainable
- Use AI to improve productivity and environmental sustainability across key stages of the agricultural and manufacturing value chains
- Harness AI to drive new discoveries and accelerate product development in target sectors
- Strengthen partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and ensure inclusive participation to discover emerging opportunities and find ways to benefit from the AI economy
This collaborative approach ensures that AI solutions are innovative, practical, scalable and aligned with industry needs, in addition to strengthening Canada's domestic AI capacity. Technologies, data and expertise developed through the program will be created, managed and deployed in Canada under Canadian stewardship to support national competitiveness and resilience.
Areas of focus
The program includes 3 thematic areas:
Theme 1: Foundational AI initiatives
These initiatives advance the essential framework, infrastructure, tools and capacity for AI adoption.
Theme 2: Agriculture and manufacturing value chain optimization
Projects focus on improving operations, predictions, forecasting and decision making across agriculture and manufacturing value chains.
Theme 3: AI for accelerating innovations
This theme explores how AI can be used to accelerate innovation, including faster product development cycles and AI applications that support Indigenous innovation.
Collaborate with us
Projects supported by the program include several key elements:
- A clear definition of the use case or problem to be solved
- An assessment of potential productivity impact
- Selection of appropriate AI methods and expertise
- Access to high-quality training data
- Development of practical AI tools for real-world use
- Secure and collaborative AI platforms for experimentation and validation
- Strong industry partnerships for adoption and implementation
Opportunities for collaboration will be ongoing throughout the program. To learn more or express interest in collaborating, send an email to the AI Productivity team at NRC.AIProductivity-IAProductivite.CNRC@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.
The NRC's National Program Office offers grant and contribution funding for eligible collaborators with complementary expertise. Learn more about our funded collaborative R&D programs and initiatives.
The AI for Productivity Challenge program is part of the Digital Technologies Research Centre.
Contact us
If you are interested in collaborating with us, making investments in this area, or if you have any questions, please contact:
AI for Productivity Challenge program
Merrina Zhang
Program Director
Email: NRC.AIProductivity-IAProductivite.CNRC@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
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