Raquel Urtasun urges Canada to embrace physical AI leadership

Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi and a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto, told a BetaKit Most Ambitious town hall on May 25 that the next wave of AI is moving into the physical world and that Canada should "go all in," per BetaKit. BetaKit published Urtasun's quote, "Imagine you have the crystal ball before the ChatGPT moment. That's where we are now." The University of Toronto's event coverage reports the same fireside chat and highlights Urtasun's comment that Canada has "important pieces" for transportation innovation, naming firms such as Magna International and BlackBerry's QNX.

The University of Toronto article notes Waabi "recently raised up to US$1 billion." A3/AUTOMATE reported the company announced a CA$1 billion Series C (about US$725 million), and BetaKit and other previews cite Waabi's partnerships and backing from firms including Uber, Volvo, and Nvidia, per BetaKit.

Industry-pattern observations: reporting across A3 and IEEE coverage frames this moment as a renewed push toward robust, verifiable autonomy built around large-scale simulation and safety-first validation. A3 described Waabi as emphasizing a "simulation-first" development path and verifiable physical AI, and an IEEE Spectrum snippet highlights similar points about Level 4 trucks and verifiability. Companies pursuing physical-AI products typically invest heavily in high-fidelity simulators, sensor suites, and validation pipelines to close the gap between digital training and real-world safety outcomes.

Editorial analysis: Urtasun's public call intersects three industry dynamics important to practitioners. First, the maturation of generative AI has made the term "AI revolution" part of public discourse, and leaders are now applying those expectations to robotics, autonomy, and industrial systems. Second, national competitive dynamics matter for supply chains and standards: the University of Toronto coverage quotes a line attributed to Evan Solomon, Canada's minister of AI, about control over "our destiny," which frames transportation autonomy as both an economic and a sovereignty issue. Third, substantial venture rounds and strategic partnerships (as reported by A3 and BetaKit) are concentrating resources in a smaller group of firms, raising the bar for engineering infrastructure but also redefining the set of available platforms and toolchains for practitioners.

• •Funding and talent flows: monitor future rounds, academic hires, and cross-border talent pipelines referenced in BetaKit and University of Toronto reporting.
• •Standards and interoperability: watch announcements from automotive suppliers like Magna and software stacks such as QNX for integration stories reported in BetaKit.
• •Validation tooling and simulators: follow technical disclosures or third-party audits that describe simulation fidelity and verification methods, following themes in A3 and IEEE coverage.
• •Policy signals: track statements and programs from Canada's ministerial offices on industrial strategy and AI sovereignty mentioned in the University of Toronto piece.

Editorial analysis: For practitioners, the practical implication is that momentum, capital, and institutional support are aligning around production-grade autonomy and robotics. That alignment increases demand for robust data-engineering, simulation, and safety-validation expertise, and it will influence where engineering teams invest in tooling and partnerships.