March 29, 2022 – Meta has today announced the creation of a new Canadian engineering hub, to be based in Toronto, and plans to hire up to 2,500 employees for remote and in-office positions across Canada over the next five years to help build for the metaverse, the next generation of social technology. The expanded presence will include establishing the first Canadian WhatsApp, Messenger and Remote Presence engineering teams and growing the Canadian Reality Labs and AI Research teams.
“The metaverse has the potential to unlock access to creative, social and economic opportunities and we want to work closely with Canadians, who are already building for this future, to shape it from the start,” said Garrick Tiplady, VP and Country Director at Meta in Canada. “Canada has always been important to Meta. We’ve helped millions of Canadians and businesses connect, create, and grow and we’re looking forward to continuing to support the Canadian economy and innovation ecosystem with these investments.”
Meta has set out to build the next evolution of social technologies over the next decade, which the company hopes will create more immersive and engaging online social experiences. According to Meta, the majority of roles in Canada will be engineering focused and are expected to span across building extended reality (XR) experiences and Meta technologies.
“This major investment builds on Meta’s long-term commitment to our province and is a strong vote of confidence in our skilled and diverse workforce,” said Ontario Premier, Doug Ford.
As well as the new Canadian engineering hub, Meta also announced an additional CAD $510,000 in unrestricted grants to 17 Canadian research labs, working on research that will advance innovations needed to build the metaverse. Meta’s unrestricted grants provide flexibility for labs to pursue their mission, and once published, their research becomes publicly accessible to help drive further innovation across the industry.
The work builds on the company’s investments in the Canadian innovation ecosystem over the years, including the opening of Meta’s AI Research Lab in Montreal and Reality Labs Research hub in Toronto. Meta noted that as it has built out its Reality Labs Research teams in Canada over the last five years, it has spent more than CAD $30 million with local Canadian suppliers. In addition, it has provided nearly CAD $1 million of unrestricted funding for Canadian universities from coast to coast.
“Unlocking the full potential of the metaverse will require multiple major technological breakthroughs and collaboration by researchers, industry partners and others all over the world,” said Daniel Wigdor, Director of Research Science, Reality Labs Research. “Canadians are already playing an important role developing new technologies to power the metaverse, and we’re thrilled to support this work to move the industry closer towards making the metaverse a reality.”
Candidates interested in the opportunity in building for the metaverse at Meta can visit metacareers.com and apply for open positions.
Image credit: Stock image
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.