Hugo Larochelle will lead research at the AI institute, one of three backed by the federal Pan-Canadian AI Strategy. He is the permanent replacement for Yoshua Bengio, who stepped down in March to launch non-profit lab LawZero. (The Logic)

Talking point: Larochelle is among the band of Canadian researchers who helped lay the foundations for modern AI with their work on neural networks, which mimic the connections of the human brain. The computer scientist trained under both Bengio and the University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton, both now focused on the severe risks they believe AI could pose to humanity. Larochelle opened the Montreal office of Google’s Brain AI unit in November 2016, and continued to lead the team’s research efforts following its merger with DeepMind. In recent years, his team there focused on using AI for environmental and sustainability applications, like estimating the energy output of rooftop solar panels or detecting birds in the wild via their chirps.