RBC has brought in high-level talent to enhance its Borealis AI research lab, hiring University of Waterloo professor Pascal Poupart and York University professor Marcus Brubaker as senior researchers.

Having worked with companies including Huawei, Google and Ford, Poupart’s research has focused on real-world applications for machine learning and developing algorithms for reasoning in uncertain situations.

Brubaker’s expertise is in something called Bayesian machine learning –methods for teaching AI systems to infer things about the world in the presence of uncertainty.

Poupart will split his time between teaching and working at Borealis, while Brubaker will be on the ground overseeing the lab’s fundamental and applied research team in Toronto.

RBC established Borealis AI in 2016 as an evolution of the existing RBC Research Institute. Borealis is intended to look outside the world of banking at projects that have an impact on local markets and customers, like societal issues or current events happening in other countries.

In November, RBC announced that it plans to expand Borealis to Montreal.