FAQ

Alberta CREATE Centre is the mother umbrella of the nanoFAB, ISAIC, and the Elko Garage bringing together shared resources that empower innovators. For more information, visit the Alberta CREATE Centre website.

If you're registered in Canada, we'd love to work with you! ISAIC supports a wide range of industries focusing on applied AI, including healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing Canada-wide. We welcome companies of all sizes and from every industry. Explore some companies' use cases on our website.

Your IP is 100% yours – no ifs, ands, or buts!

The Alberta CREATE Centre is our visionary parent organization that ISAIC proudly operates under! This innovative hub accelerates cross-industry innovation by bringing together cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing, AI compute power, and quantum technologies. As the umbrella organization for ISAIC, Alberta CREATE empowers researchers, startups, and industry partners to develop next-generation technologies. Through this connection, we're able to provide you with exceptional AI infrastructure while being part of Alberta's vibrant technology ecosystem that's focused on "where hardware meets AI." As ISAIC, we specifically deliver the AI compute power component of Alberta CREATE's broader mission to foster innovation across Western Canada.

While we're based in Alberta, we're here for all Canadian businesses! We especially love working with SMEs and innovation teams from established companies across the country.

We'd love to chat! Just fill out our contact form on the Contact page, and we'll set up a friendly Discovery call to explore how we can help bring your ideas to life.

We're proudly Canadian! While our headquarters is located at 9127 - 116 St NW, T6G 2V4, Edmonton, Alberta, our servers are securely housed at the University of Alberta's data center, which provides high-performance computing infrastructure across multiple campus locations.

At ISAIC, the Industry Sandbox and AI Computing, we're a not-for-profit cloud provider right here at the University of Alberta, built to serve Canadian businesses. We provide a secure, affordable environment with flexible Virtual Machines, offering the CPU, GPU, and storage you need to bring your data and AI/ML ideas to life, from Proof-of-Concepts to full-fledged pilots. So, why choose us over the big cloud players? First, no egress fees. We believe you should have complete freedom to move your data without extra costs. Second, your IP is yours. You always retain full ownership of your intellectual property. Third, we’re completely vendor-neutral. Our platform is built on open-source technologies, so you're never locked into a specific vendor. And finally, we're local. As an Edmonton-based organization, your data is stored in Canada and governed by Canadian laws. That's a peace of mind you won't get everywhere.

CREATE stands for Collaborative Resources Empowering Advanced Technology Experiences. It perfectly captures our mission - bringing together shared resources that empower innovators like you to create cutting-edge technology solutions. As part of the Alberta CREATE family, we're committed to making advanced technology experiences accessible to Canadian businesses of all sizes.

ISAIC supports small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at any stage of their AI/ML journey. Many clients find ISAIC services especially valuable in three key scenarios. For Early-Stage Companies Before securing VC funding: Our cost-effective solutions allow early-stage companies to make significant progress without straining their budgets. After exhausting free cloud credits: When initial offers from hyperscalers run out, ISAIC provides an economical alternative for continued development. For Academic Collaborations ISAIC helps maintain project continuity for academic collaborations with SMEs. A common issue is that after a project with professors and students is complete, it loses momentum because the SME doesn't have a place to continue the work. ISAIC is the perfect environment for them to continue these projects. For Established Businesses While many clients run production operations on major cloud platforms, they often turn to ISAIC to accelerate AI training iteration cycles and R&D efforts. This allows them to avoid paying production prices for R&D and training iterations. ISAIC offers an optimal balance between performance and affordability, making it an ideal solution for intensive development work that drives faster and more efficient innovation.

Unlike the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (DRAC), ISAIC provides dedicated resources through virtual machines (VMs) specifically tailored to your project needs. While DRAC operates on a competitive queue-based system where researchers must wait for their turn to access shared computing resources, ISAIC gives you immediate, guaranteed access to your own dedicated environment, subject to capacity. This means no waiting in queues, consistent availability of your exact configuration (hardware and firmware), and complete control over your computing resources - allowing you to focus on innovation rather than competing for compute time or facing unexpected accuracy fluctuations. Our approach delivers faster time-to-results and a more repeatable and predictable experience for applied AI and machine learning projects.

Absolutely! We love working with researchers, especially those partnering with industry on applied AI projects. Here's how ISAIC can support you: If you have an industry partner, they can apply for ISAIC resources on your behalf. This allows us to provide affordable computational infrastructure for your collaborative work. No industry partner yet? No worries! We'd be happy to help connect you with potential collaborators. Our network spans various sectors, and we're always excited to facilitate new academic-industry partnerships. We offer resources for joint projects, making it easier to translate your research into real-world applications. If you are working with Mitacs, contact us to explore how we can collaborate. If your research is more fundamental in nature, we can point you towards free resources available through the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (DRAC) or through the Rapid Access Cloud (RAC) from Cybera. Remember, our focus is on applied AI, but we're here to support the broader research community too. Don't hesitate to reach out, we're always eager to explore how we can help bring your research to life through industry collaboration!

Throughout the year, we partner with industry experts to bring you valuable panel discussions, seminars, and webinars on the latest cloud-AI trends and technologies. These events are designed to help you stay ahead of the curve and connect with others in the AI community. To make sure you don't miss out on our next learning opportunity, follow us on social media or subscribe to our newsletter, we'd love to see you there! And if there's a subject or topic you'd like to see covered, feel free to contact us, we'd be happy to explore what's of interest.

Yes! Our cloud resources are available 24/7 for real-time access, making them perfect for projects that need constant data availability. No matter when you need to access your data, we're there for you.

We've designed our VM options to meet industry standards while giving you the flexibility you need! Our Virtual Machine (VM) configurations include: Three main GPUs flavours: NVIDIA H100 (96GB) NVIDIA A100 (80GB) NVIDIA L40S (48GB) enabled with 12 different configurations that you can find on our pricing page. Whether you're training large language models, running complex simulations, or processing massive datasets, we've got you covered. Need a custom configuration that's not on the list? We're happy to help! Just reach out to us directly, and we'll work with you to build the ideal setup for your specific project requirements.

Your data's security is our top priority. We've implemented multiple security layers, including robust firewalls and encryption. We work closely with the University of Alberta's CISO to ensure everything stays safe and sound.

Absolutely! We use open-source technologies like Kubernetes and Docker, giving you full access to virtual machines and storage, which makes it easy to transfer your models and products. Plus, there are no egress fees, so you have complete freedom to move your work as needed.

We provide technical support to help configure environments, including assistance with Docker, Kubernetes, and Linux setups. We also offered open-source LLMs for inference.

Great question! Alberta SMEs can access our resources through: AI Compute Access Fund from the Government of Canada Mitacs programs Alberta Innovates' Micro Voucher Program. We'll help you estimate costs for your proposal and find the right resources for your project.

We're fortunate to have support from both the Federal Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta, which helps us keep our high-performance computing resources affordable for Canadian innovators like you. The rental fee that companies are paying is regarded as their contribution to support such infrastructure.

We're happy to offer a 30-day free trial for A100, and L40S, and a 2-weeks free trial for H100 GPU cards on a single Virtual Machine with one of the CPU configurations available of your choice. Just head over to our Pricing Table to select the setup that works best for your needs. It's the perfect opportunity to test-drive our resources and see if they're the right fit for your project before committing your budget. We want you to feel confident in your decision, so take advantage of this trial and let us know if you have any questions along the way!

Absolutely! We reward you for scaling up with us. The more GPUs you use, the more you save: 5% discount when you use 2 GPUs 7.5% discount when you use 4 GPUs 10% discount when you use 8 or more GPUs Applied to dedicated VMs running for a minimum of 28 days in a monthly billing period. It's our way of supporting your growth as your AI projects expand. Feel free to use our Pricing Tables to see how these savings add up for your specific configuration!

We believe in complete transparency. That's why we've created Pricing Tables, so you can plan your budget without any surprises. We offer competitive pricing, with rates approximately 50% less than those of large commercial cloud providers depending on the configuration selected.

Absolutely! We've made it easy to pay with your credit card through the Plastiq portal. Just remember two simple things when paying: Select "Commercial Payment" as your payment type Include your invoice number And that's it – you're all set! The process is quick and secure, giving you one more flexible way to manage your ISAIC services.

Not at all! We believe in flexibility. Use our machines for as little as two weeks or for as long as you need, whatever works best for you.