Technological Futures

The University of Waterloo is pleased to recognize three outstanding graduate students as recipients of the prestigious Governor General’s Gold Medal at Spring 2025 Convocation.  

This distinguished award honours graduate students who have demonstrated exceptional academic achievement and a remarkable commitment to scholarly excellence. These recipients exemplify the brilliance and impact of our academic community, contributing transformative research and advancing knowledge for the betterment of society. 

Tech companies with University of Waterloo connections continue to climb the annual Narwhal list of Canadian unicorns.

The list assembled annually by the Narwhal Project, a group that monitors and analyzes the technology sector, offers companies supports to become more efficient and adopt best practices. Each year they evaluate close to 1,000 Canadian technology companies. The total number of unicorns in Canada has grown from only three in 2020 to 26 this year.

Quantum computers promise more than code breaking. They could unlock commercial value in areas like banking, automotive and optimization industries. Businesses need to not only prepare for quantum attacks, but also ready their organizations to tap into the economic benefit of adopting quantum technologies.

You may want to think twice about using powerful artificial intelligence (AI) programs such as ChatGPT to self-diagnose health problems. 

A team led by researchers at the University of Waterloo found in a simulated study that ChatGPT-4o, the well-known large language model (LLM) created by OpenAI, answered open-ended diagnostic questions incorrectly nearly two-thirds of the time. 

“People should be very cautious,” said Troy Zada, a doctoral student at Waterloo. “LLMs continue to improve, but right now there is still a high risk of misinformation.” 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and deep tech are revolutionizing how building developers and owners design, build and maintain their properties thanks to Adaptis, a Velocity startup. The decision-making platform supports optimizing cost-benefit and carbon usage from concept to completion by integrating financial, sustainability and operational data.

In its latest seed funding round, Adaptis has secured $4 million USD ($5.5 million CDN) from Building Ventures, including MetaProp, 2048 Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures and Blue Vision Capital.

Chris Albinson, co-founder and managing partner of Canadian venture capital fund True North Fund and co-founder of C100, says Canada is at a critical juncture in its continuing evolution as a global innovator. He says the country and its tech leaders need to work harder to retain the best and the brightest.

Ask a 10-year-old in Waterloo region about the University of Waterloo and they may tell you about the time they played with Nao or Talos, the humanoid robots housed in Waterloo Engineering’s RoboHub.

When an idea takes flight, it can soar — especially when it is supercharged. The University of Waterloo has long been known as one of Canada’s most innovative universities and ranks number one amongst Canadian universities for producing the most successful entrepreneurs with undergraduate degrees. In large part that stems from its exceptional students and researchers that actively uncover solutions to challenges facing humanity and the planet.

As automation and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to reshape the workforce, the University of Waterloo is at the forefront of finding solutions for this challenge. With the increasing value placed on hands-on data analytics training, the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) at Waterloo recently hired a new faculty member to specifically lead a new project-based AI course. This means that students won’t just learn about technology, they’ll be solving real problems with it.