Partenar-IA | Entreprise: Projets d’innovation en intelligence artificielle: Recherche industrielle en collaboration et soutien à l’entrepreneuriat innovant (Partenar-IA | Entreprise: Artificial Intelligence Projects: Collaborative Innovation Programs – Support for Artificial Intelligence Innovation Projects)

Applicants must:
1. be Quebec companies and cooperatives wishing to carry out a collaborative innovation project for the development and commercialization of AI technologies. 2. be business consortia (minimum of two companies) including at least one Quebec SME in collaboration with a research center. As SMEs, companies must have the following characteristics:
a) They are legally incorporated under federal or Quebec laws and registered with the Quebec Business Register.
b) They are headquartered in Quebec, and their personnel or subcontractors primarily work in Quebec;
c) In Quebec, they have 250 employees or fewer;
d) Their assets (including those of associated companies), calculated on a worldwide basis, for the tax year ending during the calendar year preceding the relevant calendar year, are less than 50 million dollars. e) The management of the consortium is entrusted to an RSRI, who coordinates the planning, monitoring, and control of project activities and costs to report to the government. The following audiences are not eligible (individually or within a business group):
1. Companies directly or indirectly controlled by a government (provincial or federal) or a municipal entity;
2. Companies majority-owned by a state-owned enterprise;
3. Companies under the protection of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act or the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act;
4. Companies listed in the Register of Companies Not Eligible for Public Contracts (RENA). This situation also applies to subcontractors registered in the RENA and expected to carry out work as part of the project;
5. Companies that, in the two years preceding the application for financial assistance, have failed to meet their obligations after being duly served notice in connection with the award of previous financial assistance from the Ministry or Investissement Québec under the Economic Development Fund as well as Investissement Québec’s equity funds;
6. Companies that exhibit ethical behaviors that could, even by association, tarnish the image of integrity and probity of the Quebec government;
7. Companies that may fall within the non-eligible audiences according to the Ministry’s responsible financing policy;
8. Holding companies.