TORONTO – OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer says Canada is in a moment where it needs to figure out how to turn the advantages it has in artificial intelligence into economic opportunities.
Chris Lehane warns if the country can’t use assets like talent and energy to give it a leg up, it could wind up like Maine.
His home state is known for its lumber, which is shipped around the world and then turned into furniture that he says is often sold back to Mainers for several times more than the trees had cost in the first place. Lehane says there’s a version of that scenario that could play out in Canada with artificial intelligence, where the country builds data centres and ships the power to other parts of the world.
With the federal government drawing up an AI strategy and exploring creating a sovereign cloud, he thinks now is the time Canada can stop a Maine scenario from playing out.
Lehane’s remarks came at the annual Elevate tech conference in Toronto, which got underway Tuesday evening and runs until Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2025.
