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SCALE AI announces a major financing round with more than $96M in investments supporting 22 AI projects

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MONTREAL, June 4, 2024 /CNW/ – SCALE AI, Canada’s AI Global Innovation Cluster, is announcing a major financing round with $96 million in total investments to support 22 artificial intelligence (AI) projects in key sectors such as life sciences, retail, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and agriculture. Each initiative announced today aims to enhance efficiency, safety, and operational excellence thanks to AI-powered services and solutions, further advancing applied AI expertise in the country, to the benefit of the entire Canadian economy.

In a concerted effort to elevate national productivity and tackle Canada’s most pressing societal and economic challenges, AI emerges as a powerful tool to enhance our resource management. The projects selected by the SCALE AI team have been chosen for their potential to deliver concrete economic and human benefits and intellectual property advancements for the players involved and for the Canadian AI ecosystem. From improving supply chain logistics to advancing healthcare outcomes, the technological advances resulting from these projects are set to redefine industry standards and create tangible benefits for businesses and consumers alike.

This is one more step towards the creation of products by Canada’s leading AI providers to accelerate the adoption of AI products here and internationally. By focusing on SMEs, SCALE AI addresses the importance of stimulating domestic AI demand and reinforcing Canadian AI sovereignty amidst international competition.

The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, says: “Artificial intelligence is one of the greatest technological transformations of our age, and the variety of projects being announced today demonstrates why the Canadian AI ecosystem is among the best in the world. These projects are providing Canadians with the tools they need to harness the power of AI, while ensuring the technology is safe and secure.”

Julien Billot, CEO, SCALE AI, explains: “The Scale AI team has diligently crafted a suite of promising use cases within our AI ecosystem, fortifying our prowess and propelling Canada to the forefront of the global AI arena. Our initiatives not only showcase our innovative spirit but also signal a future rich with potential, as we continue to unlock groundbreaking opportunities in artificial intelligence.” 

Hélène Desmarais, Co-Chair of the Board of Directors, SCALE AI, adds: “The projects supported by SCALE AI are not just about technological advancement; they’re a catalyst for job creation and economic growth, opening up new opportunities for skilled employment in the Canadian AI sector. We are proud to be the best ally for accelerating the adoption of AI by both large and small Canadian companies, and we envision a future where artificial intelligence not only drives economic growth but also fosters an inclusive and innovative society.”

22 new projects representing investments of $96 million

To learn more about the projects, click here.

→ NavTrax: AI-enabled forklift automation and collision avoidance

Partners: Foxfire Labs, Johnston Heavy Machinery, Qaskail Systems, Liftow, Royal Canadian Steel, The Design Quantum

SCALE AI investment: $3.5 million

Total investment: $8.8 million

→ AI Enabled Control Tower for End-To-End Supply Chain Visibility and Support

Partners: Cavendish Farms, Deloitte, Nuvoola AI

SCALE AI investment: $3 million

Total investment: $7.8 million

→ Optimized de-icing operations

Partners: Aeromag 2000, Vooban, Air Canada

SCALE AI investment: $3 million

Total investment: $7.6 million

→ Pricing and room assignment optimization – cruise and hospitality industries

Partners: Plusgrade, IVADO Labs, MSC Cruises, InnVest Hotels

SCALE AI investment: $2.5 million

Total investment: $6.4 million

→ Leveraging AI for Patient Segmentation and Medication Adherence Forecasting

Partners: Bayshore HealthCare, Deloitte, Manifold Data Mining, Architech Solutions Consulting Services

SCALE AI investment: $1.9 million

Total investment: $6.3 million

→ Smart Replenishment and Smart Capacity

Partners: LFL Group, InDro Robotics, Lemay.AI

SCALE AI investment: $1.9 million

Total investment: $5 million

→ Bottleneck recognition analytics for manufacturing

Partners: Pacefactory, Woodbridge, Magna International, FunnelCloud, DSS + Dupont Sustainable Solutions

SCALE AI investment: $1.9 million

Total investment: $4.8 million

→ NutriVision

Partners: Foxfire Labs, Magellan Systems, 503 Farming, Alokozay Distribution, Al-Nasr Groceries

SCALE AI investment: $1.6 million

Total investment: $4.2 million

→ ADM AI Ramp Fluidity

Partners: Aéroports de Montréal, IVADO Labs, Groupe Infynia

SCALE AI investment: $1.7 million

Total investment: $17.6 million

→ Usage cycle prediction and anomaly detection for electric vehicle fleets

Partners: Cleo, Location Brossard, IVADO Labs

SCALE AI investment: $1.3 million

Total investment: $3.4 million

→ Advanced Planogram Optimization Functionalities

Partners: Canadian Tire, IVADO Labs, Cantactix Solutions

SCALE AI investment: $1.2 million

Total investment: $3.1 million

→ Platform for the North American Supply Chain Business Health and Risk Management

Partners: FreshBooks, Bullet Security, Digital Design, IXICA Communications, Sitter Select, MiSCAN Lab (McMaster University)

SCALE AI investment: $1.2 million

Total investment: $2.9 million

→ Routific II AI-powered Route Optimization

Partners: Routific Solutions, Fresh Prep, Lemay.ai, Leis de Buds, Greenhouse Juice Company

SCALE AI investment: $1 million

Total investment: $3.4 million

→ Improving last mile delivery with AI-generated indoor maps

Partners: Mappedin, Shippie, Rogers, Communitech, UniUni

SCALE AI investment: $0.7 million

Total investment: $2.5 million

→ Project Janus

Partners: NOLK, MOOV AI, Spaceful

SCALE AI investment: $0.9 million

Total investment: $2.3 million

→ WorkSafe AI

Partners: OVA, ArcelorMittal Produits longs Canada, Centre for Development and Research in Digital Intelligence (CDRIN)

SCALE AI investment: $0.7 million

Total investment: $2.2 million

→ AI-Driven Supply Chain

Partners: Logistik Unicorp, Inmind technologies, SimWell, Laboratoire en Intelligence des Données (LID-polymtl), Mondou, POLR

SCALE AI investment: $0.7 million

Total investment: $1.9 million

AI-Automated Inspection and Predictive Maintenance of Wireline Cables

Partners: Tier 1 Energy, Zetane Systems, DeltaTee Enterprises

SCALE AI investment: $0.5 million

Total investment: $1.6 million

→ SOLARIS

Partners: Enovum Data Centers, FirstBlock, Mind in a Box, Société en commandite Lebourgneuf, Énergir

SCALE AI investment: $0.6 million

Total investment: $1.5 million

→ AI-enabled Raw Material Characterization for the Drug Manufacturing Supply Chain

Partners: Katalyze AI, Sanofi Canada

SCALE AI investment: $0.3 million

Total investment: $0.6 million

→ Predicting patient risk of hospitalization and re-optimizing Home Care delivery

Partners: AlayaCare, CIUSSS NIM, Bien Chez Soi, Polytechnique Montréal

SCALE AI investment: $1 million

Total investment: $2.8 million

→ Accelerating Canadian Customs Brokerage with Intelligent Document Processing

Partners: Mely.ai Solutions, W2C, Mantoria

Scale AI investment: $0.2 million

Total investment: $0.3 million

About SCALE AI (scaleai.ca)

As Canada’s AI Global Innovation Cluster, Scale AI acts as an investment and innovation hub that accelerates the rapid adoption and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and contributes to developing a world-class Canadian AI ecosystem. Based in Montreal and funded by the federal government and the Quebec government, Scale AI works with more than 500 industry partners, research institutes, and other players in the field of AI. The organization develops programs to support investments in companies that implement real-world applications of AI and encourage the emergence of future Canadian flagships in the sector, all while facilitating the development of a highly skilled workforce.

SOURCE Scale AI

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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