Facebook (FB) Latest AI Research Center To Come Up In Canada

Per media reports, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) will set up an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in Montreal, Canada. This will be its second research lab located overseas. The company already has a research facility in Paris.

In addition to the abovementioned labs, Facebook operates two more AI focused labs in Menlo Park, CA and the New York City.

Facebook’s Montreal facility will be led by Joelle Pineau who researches on AI and is a professor at Montreal’s McGill University. Her work on Dialog Systems (enabling computers to understand human language) and Reinforcement Learning (enabling computer to take decisions) are highly important to Facebook, adds Fortune. In addition to Pineau, Facebook is looking to hire nine more researchers for the lab.

By setting up a lab in Canada, Facebook is also trying to tap into local AI talent. McGill and Waterloo universities in Canada are big time research hubs with expertise on deep/machine learning, adds media reports. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) have already established labs in Canada.

Facebook’s 10-year roadmap comprises AI along with augmented reality/virtual reality. The company is a big believer that these technologies will revolutionize the future and emerge as big business opportunities.Research firm IDC estimates that the AR/VR market will grow to a whopping $143.3 billion by 2020, while that for AI would be close to $46 billion.

At its F8 held this year, Facebook made some jaw dropping announcements, including typing with brain AR glasses and superior connectivity that aims to change the way we live.

A few months back, after having come under fire from various governments for its inability to contain terrorism and fake news, Facebook deployed AI technology on its platform. In a blog post, Facebook said that it will deploy advanced algorithms that can detect images, text, pages or groups that seem to promote extremism and take it down.

In fact, Facebook is a part of a consortium that includes Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) , Microsoft and Alphabet. These companies have collaborated to curb extremist activities on social media platforms. The companies said that all of them are getting together to identify the images, video and other media that has radical content, and create a shared database for the same. Facebook said that it was looking to add more partners to this collaboration.

Zacks Rank and Share Price Movement

Facebook carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Notably, the company has outperformed the industry in the past year. Shares of Facebook have surged 33.2% compared with the industry’s 14.3% increase.

Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?

Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.

Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

See the pot trades we're targeting>>