TELUS announces strategic partnership with Mila to drive AI advancements and capabilities across sectors

Collaboration will create deeper connections between academia and industry among partners with a shared vision of impactful, human-centric AI

MONTREAL, Sept. 11, 2024 /CNW/ - Today, TELUS announced a strategic partnership with Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, to build on both organizations' efforts to develop artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of society. Together, TELUS and Mila will explore state-of-the-art AI technologies and potential industry impacts for the benefit of Canadian customers.

"By partnering with Mila, TELUS is demonstrating its commitment to bolstering Canada's technology ecosystem through the development of trustworthy, ethical AI," said Pam Snively, Chief Data & Trust Officer at TELUS. "By collaborating on initiatives with the highest standards of integrity and excellence, we are ensuring that our AI advancements are not only innovative, but also responsible and beneficial to society."

"This partnership between Mila and TELUS benefits from both organizations' wide scope of activity, in the research sphere and in the industry sphere respectively," said Stéphane Létourneau, Executive Vice President of Mila. "Mila is delighted to partner with TELUS, an organization which embraces open science research and its importance, to explore AI research and solutions that could positively impact a broad range of sectors."

TELUS is a global leader in the responsible and ethical use of AI, and recently made history with its generative AI (GenAI) customer support tool, becoming the first in the world to be internationally certified in Privacy by Design (ISO 31700-1). In addition to being the current holder of the Outstanding Organization prize from the Responsible AI Institute in recognition of its commitment to fostering trust and benefitting society, TELUS was also the first telecom company in Canada to sign the Government of Canada's voluntary code of conduct for generative AI, which aims to ensure the transparent, equitable and responsible development and deployment of GenAI technology. Earlier this year, the company published its inaugural TELUS AI report: The power of perspectives in Canada, sharing the perceptions, insights and opinions on AI from nearly 5,000 Canadians, including Indigenous Peoples, racialized groups, older Canadians, new Canadians, youth, people with physical disabilities, and the LGBTQ2S+ community.

Inspired by the recent launch of Mila's Indigenous Pathfinders in AI program, TELUS looks forward to supporting further leadership-supporting career initiatives to drive innovation and enhance AI capabilities moving forward. TELUS was proud to provide members of the Indigenous Pathfinders in AI program with four bursaries to attend the 2024 ALL IN AI event taking place in Montreal on September 11 and 12, 2024, including participation in a TELUS' Purple Teaming workshop at the event, featuring Fuel iX, an enterprise-grade generative AI engine.

"Translating generative AI's groundbreaking capabilities into real solutions is a critical step in realizing amazing outcomes for our customers and communities," said Jaime Tatis, Chief Insights Officer, TELUS. "Through our collaboration with Mila, TELUS is dedicated to fostering the growth of AI talent in Canada and to building state-of-the-art AI technology that solves real challenges that will benefit customers."

To learn more about TELUS' commitment to responsible, trustworthy AI, visit telus.com/ResponsibleAI.

For more information, please contact:

Sacha Gudmundsson 
TELUS Public Relations
[email protected] 

About Mila

Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal, Mila is the world's largest academic research center for deep learning, bringing together over 1,200 specialized researchers in machine learning. Based in Montreal and funded in part by the Government of Canada through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, Mila's mission is to be a global center for scientific advancements that inspire innovation and the growth of AI for the benefit of all. Mila is a globally recognized non-profit organization for its significant contributions to deep learning, especially in the fields of language modeling, automatic translation, object recognition, and generative models. For more information, visit mila.quebec.

About TELUS

TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a dynamic, world-leading communications technology company with more than $20 billion in annual revenue and over 19 million customer connections spanning wireless, data, IP, voice, television, entertainment, video, and security. Our social purpose is to leverage our global-leading technology and compassion to drive social change and enable remarkable human outcomes. Our longstanding commitment to putting our customers first fuels every aspect of our business, making us a distinct leader in customer service excellence and loyalty. The numerous, sustained accolades TELUS has earned over the years from independent, industry-leading network insight firms showcase the strength and speed of TELUS' global-leading networks, reinforcing our commitment to provide Canadians with access to superior technology that connects us to the people, resources and information that make our lives better.

Operating in 32 countries around the world, TELUS International (TSX and NYSE: TIXT) is a leading digital customer experience innovator that designs, builds, and delivers next-generation solutions, including AI and content moderation, for global and disruptive brands across strategic industry verticals, including tech and games, communications and media, eCommerce and fintech, banking, financial services and insurance, healthcare, and others.

TELUS Health is a global healthcare leader, which provides employee and family primary and preventive healthcare and wellbeing solutions. Our TELUS team, along with our 100,000 health professionals, are leveraging the combination of TELUS' strong digital and data analytics capabilities with our unsurpassed client service to dramatically improve remedial, preventive and mental health outcomes covering nearly 72 million lives, and growing, around the world. As the largest provider of digital solutions and digital insights of its kind, TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods enables efficient and sustainable production from seed to store, helping improve the safety and quality of food and other goods in a way that is traceable to end consumers.

Driven by our determination and vision to connect all citizens for good, our deeply meaningful and enduring philosophy to give where we live has inspired TELUS and our team to contribute $1.7 billion, including 2.2 million days of service since 2000. This unprecedented generosity and unparalleled volunteerism have made TELUS the most giving company in the world. Together, let's make the future friendly.

For more information about TELUS, please visit telus.com, follow us at @TELUSNews on X and @Darren_Entwistle on Instagram.

SOURCE TELUS Communications Inc.