AI degree programs are popping up across North America. Here’s where Atlantic Canada stands
AI degree programs are popping up across North America. Here’s where Atlantic Canada stands
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/ai-degrees-atlantic-canada-9.7253629
Publish Date: 2026-07-02 05:00:00
Source Domain: www.cbc.ca
Joel Blit was two-thirds of the way through teaching an economics course when his students started posing non-stop questions about artificial intelligence.
Finally, Blit asked the class at the University of Waterloo if he should throw out the rest of the course and just focus on AI.
“They said yes, please, please do,” said Blit, who is also the co-founder of the Canadian AI Adoption Initiative.
He thinks that his students being interested in AI is a sign of the times. They can sense how deeply AI will transform the economy— hundreds of new jobs and billions of dollars — and they don’t want to be left behind.
Joel Blit, a professor at the University of Waterloo, is preparing to teach a course this fall on how AI will impact the job market (The University of Waterloo)
Not many universities are preparing students for that future, Blit said. Few schools offer opportunities to earn an AI degree, or programs that teach people not just how to use the technology, but also how to create and apply it.
But some schools in Atlantic Canada, such as the University of New Brunswick and Dalhousie University, are quietly building new programs that will give them a competitive edge as Canada rolls out its AI strategy over the next five years.
UNB Saint John will launch a bachelor of data science degree in September 2027, according to a spokesperson. And Dalhousie University will launch a major in AI under the computer science umbrella within the next two years, according to Frank Rudzicz, a computer science professor and Canada Institute for Advanced Research chair in AI.
Canada’s AI strategy projects more than 250,000 new AI-relevant jobs will be created across the economy by 2031.
‘We don’t want to lose the opportunity to people moving west’
When it comes to AI degree programs, the United States is far ahead of Canada.
Its first AI university degree appeared in Pittsburgh in 2018, according to The New York Times, and by 2021, five schools offered AI majors. Today,…
