New path creation in the artificial intelligence industry: regional preconditions, new actors and their collective actions, and policies

This article contributes to the growing literature on a broader understanding of new industry path creation shaped by regional preconditions as well as multi-actor and multi-scale interventions. Using the case of Montreal’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry as its testing ground, the findings point to the significance of pre-existing industrial structures and knowledge base, as well as the importance of new innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and coordinated multilevel policy initiatives directed at nurturing the new industries, and collective place-based leadership.