Tech Roundup
Oct. 27, 2026

Headlines

• Alberta Innovates featured Zero Point Cryogenics as it moves into a larger Edmonton manufacturing facility for its ultra-low-temperature cooling systems for quantum computers. "Zero Point Cryogenics started innovating in a lab at the University of Alberta," said CEO Chris Cassin. "Today we're shipping Canadian-built systems to customers on three continents, and we're hiring and upskilling Alberta tradespeople into a sector that didn't exist five years ago."
• Alberta Innovates announced the Venture Development Grant, which brings together its six previous startup funding programs into one grant. "Innovators no longer have to work out which program fits — they apply once, with support matched to where their venture is today," the organization said.
• SCALEDai is partnering with Explore Edmonton for a workshop teaching tourism partners about practical AI tools. The half-day session takes place on Nov. 25.
• Edmonton is among eight cities collaborating on urban innovation and digitalization through the EU Cities Gateway program. The cohort will focus on AI literacy, sharing code and working systems, and a jointly funded data science team. "The real currency in cities is innovation and knowledge", said Kris Andreychuk, Edmonton's program manager of applied artificial intelligence. "We need to do a better job of sharing freely with one another, and not just stories of success, but actual solutions that are working in our cities."
• Patrick Pilarski of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and BLINC Lab spoke to the TechSurge podcast about why reinforcement-learning experts think large language models are a dead end, explaining the premise of the Alberta Plan, which he co-authored with Richard Sutton and Michael Bowling in 2022. He also shared that he will join San Francisco-based ExperienceFlow.AI as "head of edge superintelligence" in Sutton's research lab.
• Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute researchers released a paper about the power of options in reinforcement learning. Erik M. Lintunen and his supervisor, Amii Fellow Marlos C. Machado, have created Wayfarer, an autonomous decision-making architecture that can master complicated behaviours using only the agent's data stream.
• The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and New Harvest partnered on two papers about the future of machine learning in cellular agriculture. "To date, there has been limited collaboration and cross-pollination between the cellular agriculture and ML communities," said Dave Staszak, lead machine learning scientist at Amii. "When we started learning more about this field, we realized lots of areas are ripe for optimization with ML."
• Founders and investors shared their hot takes at Tech Thursday during Edmonton Startup Week. ​Kristina Milke of Sprout Fund, ​Tristan Ham of Unbounded Thinking, ​Kristina McDougall of Artemis Canada, and ​Nina Karpoff of RNARevive discussed why selling early isn't necessarily a problem; how to prevent brain drain; what "not right now" actually means; and how Canada's risk-averse culture stymies innovation.
• Digital Alberta is among the professional associations for the games industry that leapt to support the estimated 50 people laid off at BioWare. The situation is a "wake-up call" and emblematic of setbacks going back to at least 2022, said Interactive Arts Alberta. "More than ever, let's find ways to support the people who make up our creative industries," the non-profit wrote. "Whether that's transitioning to indie, to another studio, or to a new career, we should be resourcing interventions that ensure Alberta retains the creative and technical talent who have built world-renowned games, experienced by millions of fans across the world." Federal NDP leader Avi Lewis suggested BioWare employees should be given a chance to purchase the company back from EA. Former BioWare employee Ben Gelinas reflected on the company's contributions to the industry and to the city. "BioWare is the most Edmonton thing I can think of," he told CBC. "It's wild that a company this large, and often undersung, could blossom out of a place like this. But I don't think it could have happened anywhere else, because we're such a city of people who hunker down and make weird stuff."
• Melvin Adekanye of Calgary-based JamSocial discussed the company's mobile networking game, Jam Bingo, on the Good Game YEG podcast. The game gives event attendees conversation prompts after they scan a QR code.
• The Canada HealthTech Innovation Symposium in Calgary on Nov. 4 and 5 will hear from several Edmontonians. Among the speakers are Mike Schoenberger of Sunco, Arden Tse of Yaletown Partners, Nir Katchinskiy of PulseMedica, Vivian Mushahwar of iSMART, Myrna Bittner of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, Amanda Bhardwaj of AltaML, and Riya Ganguly of Antigoni Studios.
• The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute will participate in Vancouver's Futureproof Festival of AI. Canada CIFAR AI Chair Angelica Lim will discuss how relationships with AI affect us.
• Andrea Eriksson of Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation will attend the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation World Conference in France. The Edmonton Research Park is preparing to host the North American edition in May 2027.
• The provincial government is planning to introduce legislation providing "stronger protections for data centre development" in the fall session. Details were scarce at the news conference, but House Leader Joseph Schow suggested the province intended to continue attracting data centre development.
• The Boreal Technology Hub data centre in Parkland County is the latest project to spark community concern in the Edmonton region. The proponents — Brookfield, CPP Investments, and TransAlta — held an open house on Oct. 7 to discuss the project. It is located just south of TransAlta's Keephills generating station with an initial power allocation of 230 megawatts.

Jobs and opportunities

• Applications are open for Level Up, the CTO coaching program from the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute.
• The City of Leduc is hiring a manager of data and analytics to lead its data, analytics, and AI strategy.
• Jobber is hiring roles across product engineering and design.
• AltaML is hiring an AI architect.
• Fleetworthy is hiring an associate product manager and a senior software engineer.
• Alberta Innovates is hiring a senior technologist and an engineering co-op student.
• ElectionBuddy is hiring a full-stack developer and junior software developer intern.
• Law Depot is hiring a software development manager and product manager.

Happenings

Here are some events coming up soon:

• Oct. 28: ENBIX Luncheon & Panel starting at 11:30am at Westin Edmonton
• Oct. 28: Tech For Good Alliance Working Group starting at 4pm at Arcadia Brewing Co.
• Oct. 28: Tech Wednesdays starting at 5:30pm at The Pint Public House
• Oct. 29: Battery Energy Storage in Alberta starting at 12pm online
• Oct. 29: Women Taking Over TNT starting at 5pm at The Wine Room
• Oct. 30-31: UX Camp Edmonton 2026 at MacEwan University
• Nov. 4-7: DAMA Edmonton Conference: Powering Digital Health & AI Through Trusted Data at NAIT Productivity and Innovation Centre

And here are more to keep in mind:

• Nov. 6: 37th Annual ASTech Awards Gala and Innovation Showcase at Westin Edmonton
• Nov. 12: Startup TNT: Top 5 Finale Night at Citadel Theatre
• Nov. 14-15: Canada's Defence Tech Hackathon

Visit the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.