Through its visionary commitment to technological progress, Google has supported teaching and groundbreaking research at U of T across a broad range of fields of crucial importance to the world.
A global technology leader focused on organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful, Google was initially established as an innovative search engine in 1998. Since then, the company has grown into a multinational business with a wide range of products, services, research and technology, including online search, Google Workspace, YouTube, cloud computing and storage, and artificial intelligence.
In 2025, Google provided a remarkable $10 million in funding to help U of T establish the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence, a prestigious, advanced research role in the Department of Computer Science dedicated to fundamental discoveries and insights to support the intellectual underpinnings necessary to take AI to the next level.
Google partnered with U of T to establish this endowed chair to help accelerate breakthrough innovations and promote responsible AI use, while supporting visionary scholars who can shape global discussions on the application of AI technologies across myriad fields. The chair is named in honour of University Professor Emeritus and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, whose revolutionary research at U of T and Google formed the foundation of modern artificial intelligence.
The Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence is the latest instance of U of T and Google’s longtime partnership supporting discovery-based research. Over the years, Google has engaged many AI-focused U of T alumni and academic leaders, including Hinton, and the two organizations are founding partners in Toronto’s Vector Institute.
In 2019, Google contributed nearly $1 million to support the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Machine Learning in the Department of Computer Science. The program helps universities expand existing strengths and drive research in emerging areas of advanced technology. It also enriches training for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows through exposure to real-world industry research challenges. Previous funding from Google has helped position the University of Toronto as a preeminent centre for advanced research in AI, and this new chair will greatly expand this impact.
Google’s generous contributions to U of T over the years – spanning computer science, physics, quantum computing, chemistry, astronomy and astrophysics, and engineering, along with significant work in human computer interaction, bioscience, machine learning, natural language processing, neural nets and more — have enhanced U of T’s legacy of discovery and innovation and bolstered its standing as a global centre for a prosperous future.