Canada needs to ensure it doesn’t lose its homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) talent to other countries, according to one leader in the Canadian technology sector.

John Ruffolo, founder and managing partner of Maverix Private Equity, said Canada is “very well-represented in terms of the brain power behind many of these (global AI) companies.” But he said Canada needs to make sure it doesn’t lose its great talent.

“There is a great talent resource pool and the Canadian government has actually been very good in trying to jumpstart that,” Ruffolo said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Monday.

“What we need to be doing is ensuring that we're not losing this great technical talent to the United States or elsewhere.”

Ruffolo is also the founder and former chief executive officer of OMERS Ventures. During his time as CEO, the company invested in Canadian technology companies such as e-commerce platform Shopify Inc., travel app Hopper and social media management business Hootsuite Inc.

Ruffolo added that the country needs to make sure its enticing technology workers to “stay in Canada and help build the value of these (Canadian AI) companies.”

He said as businesses place a larger focus on AI globally, it will be important to ensure that “the value or intellectual property that they're (Canadian AI talent) building is not owned by foreign companies, because that's just not helpful.”

Check out the full video at the top of the article to learn more.