Thousands gathered in Montreal for ALL IN 2026 on Wednesday as Canada and Germany announced a joint commitment of up to $300 million to LawZero, a Montreal-based non-profit founded by Yoshua Bengio, in one of the conference’s headline developments.
ALL IN 2026: Canada and Germany fund LawZero’s Scientist AI
Canada will invest $150 million and Germany plans to provide 100 million euros to support LawZero’s work on Scientist AI, an approach the organization says is designed to make advanced AI more transparent, trustworthy and safe by design. The funding will also back research, engineering talent and computing capacity, including a new German office and dedicated sovereign computing infrastructure in Canada. Germany’s contribution is subject to notification by the European Commission.
Canadian Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon said the investment aims to develop increasingly capable AI while keeping safety and human oversight central. “It is not to not build or to build, it is to build right or to build wrong,” Solomon said. “Today is about building right.”
Solomon joined German Federal Minister for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation Karsten Wildberger on stage at the Palais des congrès, where they took part in opening sessions alongside industry figures including Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez and Aleph Alpha’s Samuel Weinbach. Germany is the country of honour at this year’s conference, and Solomon said the partnership will strengthen technological sovereignty and AI capacity between the two countries.
Debate over safety, trust and the conference’s agenda
Questions about safety, privacy and public trust ran throughout the two-day event, which featured four stages, hundreds of exhibitors, hands-on workshops, industry roundtables, real-world demonstrations, startup competitions and major announcements. Programming on Wednesday examined public trust, the environmental impact of AI, autonomous systems and the infrastructure needed to support increasingly powerful models.
Isabelle Turcotte, founder and CEO of ALL IN, said she is optimistic about AI’s potential in health care, agriculture, education and manufacturing, but stressed that potential must be matched by responsible development. “My thoughts is that I’m pretty optimistic in all the things that AI can do to help our society,” she said. “There’s a lot of ways where AI can help improve human capabilities, but it’s important that we do it responsibly in the right way.”
Vandalism at Mila underscores tensions
The conference came a day after vandalism at the Mila AI research institute in Montreal, where several windows were smashed and graffiti criticizing AI was left on the building. Police said about 10 people may have been involved and one woman was arrested. Solomon condemned the incident and emphasized that researchers and students have the right to work safely: “We will never condone any acts of violence or vandalism. This is unacceptable in our democracy.” He added that people have the right to question AI and protest peacefully, but that researchers, educators, workers and communities must be protected.
Attendees and locals express mixed views
Voices at the conference reflected both enthusiasm and caution. Jayesh Patel of Burlington, Ont., said his company is increasingly incorporating AI and that he finds the technology “certainly useful” and “a powerful tool.” Shelbi Sias, who traveled from Alaska, said she attended to learn from leaders and bring knowledge back to her organization. Marie-Josée Gaudreault of Sherbrooke described AI as “an accelerator” and “an assistant” in her work but said privacy and the future of AI must be taken seriously.
Outside the venue, people on Montreal streets offered mixed views: an engineer from New Zealand said AI should be treated like any other tool with clear boundaries for use and abuse, while a master’s student in AI said the technology could boost productivity and research but also expressed fears about job displacement.
Turcotte said ALL IN is meant to bring creators and adopters of AI together and to encourage dialogue on the technology’s social impact. She noted delegations from more than 50 countries were attending and said they were looking to collaborate on building safer AI.
