New path creation in the artificial intelligence industry: regional preconditions, new actors and their collective actions, and policies

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the growing literature on a broader understanding of new industry path creation shaped by regional preconditions as well as multi-actor and multi-scale interventions. Using the case of Montreal’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry as its testing ground, the findings point to the significance of pre-existing industrial structures and knowledge base, as well as the importance of new innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and coordinated multilevel policy initiatives directed at nurturing the new industries, and collective place-based leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• new path creation
• artificial intelligence
• actors
• policies
• Montreal

JEL:

• L69
• R58

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank David Wolfe, Michaela Trippl and Giuseppe Calignano for their comments, which helped to improve the article. Input from research seminar participants at the International Workshop on Innovation-Based Regional Restructuring and New Path Development in Vienna, Austria, 2019, are acknowledged. The authors thank Geneviève Savoie-Dansereau for her help in conducting some of the interviews, and Sophianne Houle-Poulin for collecting the data on the policies. The authors are grateful to three reviewers for their very valuable comments on previous versions of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Although there is no one predominant definition of what is an emerging industry (Gustafsson et al., 2016), in this paper, and in line with existing studies, we consider an emerging industry characterized by an early stage of development, which comprises a few companies and is centred around new technologies.

2. The ENCQOR project groups firms and research laboratories in digital communication with the aim to unlock the massive potential of smart cities, smart grids, connected and autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things, among others.

 

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible by financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant numbers 430-2012-0935, 895-2013-1008 and 895-2018-1006].