Practical Software Tools for Federated Science
Open-source solutions that solve real researcher pain points while respecting Canadian sovereignty and Indigenous data governance
Platform Software Tools
Based on proven open-source technologies, adapted for Canadian sovereignty, governance, and bilingualism
Federated Data Catalog & Discovery API
Development: 3-6 months
Problem Solved:
Researchers spend 40–60% of their time searching for datasets across 13 provincial and federal systems
Solution:
Unified search API across all Canadian scientific repositories with FAIR metadata and OCAP compliance
Impact: Data discovery time reduced from weeks to minutes
Provincial Data Sharing Protocol
Development: 6-9 months
Problem Solved:
Cross-provincial research requires 6+ months of legal paperwork and manual compliance checks
Solution:
Automated governance framework with legal compliance built-in (PIPEDA, provincial health acts, OCAP)
Impact: Cross-provincial projects go from 6 months bureaucracy to 2-week digital workflow
Computome: The Compute Connectome
Development: 9-12 months
Problem Solved:
Students wait weeks for campus clusters while national resources sit at 60% utilization; startups can't afford AWS ($3/GPU-hour) but can't access Alliance resources
Solution:
Unified gateway and intelligent dispatcher for all Digital Research Alliance resources — automatic routing based on queue times, data locality, and carbon footprint
Impact: National cluster utilization increases from 60% to 80% ($50M value/year); startups access HPC at $1/GPU-hour; students get same access as professors
Federated Compute API
Development: 9-12 months
Problem Solved:
Cross-provincial research requires moving sensitive data (violating sovereignty)
Solution:
Run computation where data lives — complements Computome for federated research workflows
Impact: Enables analysis combining BC health data + Alberta climate models + NWT field data in one job without data movement
Consent-as-Code System
Development: 6-9 months
Problem Solved:
No existing platform automates Indigenous data governance (OCAP) at scale
Solution:
Machine-readable consent policies with blockchain-based immutable records and community control portals
Impact: World's first platform to automate OCAP at scale — competitive advantage vs. Genesis
Privacy-Preserving Analytics Framework
Development: 12-18 months
Problem Solved:
Cancer genomics and health research requires centralizing sensitive patient data (unacceptable for provinces)
Solution:
Federated learning + secure multi-party computation — analyze without seeing raw data
Impact: Enables research on 10M patient records with zero data centralization
NORAI SDK (Python, R, Julia)
Development: 6-9 months
Problem Solved:
Complexity barrier — researchers need simple tools, not DevOps expertise
Solution:
5 lines of code API for 80% of use cases with automatic authentication and compliance
Impact: Researchers can use NORAI immediately without training
Scientific Workflow Marketplace
Development: 3-6 months
Problem Solved:
Researchers reinvent analysis pipelines instead of reusing validated methods
Solution:
Registry of validated, reproducible workflows with one-click deployment and automatic citation
Impact: 1,200+ workflow runs saving thousands of researcher hours
Development Roadmap
Phased approach to building Canada's sovereign scientific AI infrastructure
Phase 1: MVP
Key Deliverables:
- Federated Data Catalog (search across StatsCan, NRCan, ECCC)
- NORAI SDK (Python only) — simple API
- Basic Compute API — submit to 2-3 clusters
- Public Dashboard — show platform activity
Outcome: Researchers can discover and request 100 datasets, run basic jobs
Phase 2: Governance
Key Deliverables:
- Provincial Data Sharing Protocol — legal compliance automation
- Consent-as-Code (OCAP automation)
- Privacy-Preserving Analytics (federated learning)
- Research Partnership Portal
Outcome: Cross-provincial projects with Indigenous data governance enabled
Phase 3: Scale
Key Deliverables:
- Multi-Cloud Broker — burst to Azure/AWS Canada
- Workflow Marketplace — 100+ validated pipelines
- SDK for R and Julia
- Compute Credits System for equitable access
Outcome: 1,000+ active researchers, 50+ cross-provincial projects
5-Year Roadmap
Strategic milestones from foundation to global leadership
- 7 prototypes operational
- 500+ researchers
- Python SDK launched
- 2,000 active researchers
- Borealis-8B launched
- 50+ workflows
- 5,000 researchers
- Provincial interconnect
- Borealis-70B
- 10,000 researchers
- International partnerships
- 17x ROI achieved
- 15,000+ researchers
- Borealis-671B
- Global leader in scientific AI
Join the Mission
Help build Canada's sovereign AI infrastructure for scientific discovery. We're actively seeking partnerships with research institutions, government agencies, and industry leaders.