An eternally inventive city, it’s no wonder why Montréal holds some of Québec’s top engineering companies and plays a pivotal role in fostering the next generation of engineering excellence. The city was officially deemed a City of the Future on the worldwide index based on its digital life, mobility innovation, business tech infrastructure and its use of technology to create a sustainable tomorrow. In short, here are just a few ways in which we’re engineering a better future.
A richly diverse pool of experts
Montréal’s pool of up-and-coming and proven talent is impressive. There are more than 17,000 university students enrolled in engineering-related programs at either the renowned École Polytechnique de Montréal, École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), Université de Montréal, Concordia University of McGill University. Montréal was recently named North America’s16th best city to score tech talent, with McGill at the head of the game with a ranking among North America’s Top 50 universities for engineering (and Top 100 worldwide) on EduRank’s 2023 list.
The city represents more than 34% of the province’s pool of engineers, of which approximately 22% are women. There are more than 32,900 engineering professionals in Montréal who are related to the aerospace industry.
Engineering associations and institutes
You’ll find two Canadian engineering associations in Montréal — the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering — as well as two of the leading organizations in Québec’s engineering industry, the Association des ingénieurs-conseils du Québec and the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec. Several leading foreign subsidiaries also have offices here, including SNC-Lavalin, Stantec, ALTEN, Cima International, BBA, Tetra Tech and Pomerleau. The city is also home to the aerospace cluster, known as Aéro Montréal.
Montréal is also home to highly specialized research centers and institutes in the fields of artificial intelligence, software engineering and computer science. They include:
- Montréal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA)
- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Computer Research Institute of Montréal (CRIM)
- Institute for Data Valorisation (IVADO)
- ENCS Software Engineering Research Center (SERC) - Concordia University
- Canada Excellence Research Chair in Data Science for Real-Time Decision-Making (CERC) - Polytechnique
- Reasoning and Learning Lab (RLLAB) - McGill University
- Laboratory for Imagery Vision and Artificial Intelligence (LIVIA) – ÉTS
Major engineering events
Our competitive academic spaces and high-tech facilities make Montréal a natural place to host international tech and engineering meetings, congresses and conventions. Some of the most recent include:
- 2023 Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics & Frequency Control Society (IUS), IEEE (1,900 attendees)
- 2022 OACI Meeting, International Civil Aviation Organization (1,500 attendees)
- 2022 Montreal Manufacturing Technology Show, Society of Manufacturing Engineers Canada (2,700 attendees)
- 2022 Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, The International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) (2,100 attendees)
From our thriving AI startup scene to our game-changing gaming industry to our booming life-sciences sector, Montréal offers a culture of renewal and originality. Engineering is at the core of all that inventiveness.
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