Canada must turn its AI advantages into economic opportunities: OpenAI exec

Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer at OpenAI, is photographed in Toronto, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane grew up in Maine, where he recalls there was no shortage of trees.

They got chopped into lumber, shipped around the world and then turned into furniture that was often sold back to Mainers for several times more than the trees had cost in the first place.

There’s a version of that scenario that could play out in Canada with artificial intelligence and Lehane thinks now is the moment to stop it.

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“The real challenge for Canada and the opportunity, really, is can it harness its advantages, and make sure that they’re translating into economic development here in Canada?” he said in an interview during a visit to Canada this week.

“AI should not just be ‘We’re going to build data centres and ship the power to other parts of the world.”’

His comments came on the sidelines of the Toronto tech conference Elevate, a day after he met with AI Minister Evan Solomon, who has promised the country’s first strategy around the technology by the end of the year.

How bold, sovereign and hospitable it winds up being to foreign tech giants like OpenAI, the U.S.-based maker of chatbot ChatGPT, is still up in the air.

Solomon only named a task force that will help craft the strategy last month and they have much to consider. AI is evolving as quickly as the geopolitical tensions that caused Canada and the U.S. to shift from friends to foes earlier in the year.

The task force will have to consider if it wants to adopt a staunch version of sovereignty that shuts out neighbouring tech giants or a less rigid form that allows domestic firms to play to their strengths and foreign companies to fill in the gaps homegrown companies can’t.

Sofia Ouslis, a press secretary for Solomon, said a “productive introductory” meeting was held between the minister and OpenAI. They discussed “the potential of Canada’s AI economy,” she said in an email.

One of Lehane’s takeaways was that the federal government has so far been “engaging with other global entities to see who’s really going to be a true partner for Canada.”

“Our message in that conversation is that we want to be a value add here,” said Lehane.

One of the ways his company wants to add value is through OpenAI for Countries, a program launched in May that is meant to help other nations boost their data centre capacity and customize ChatGPT to their local languages and customs.

Lehane, a seasoned politico who worked in the Clinton administration, envisions the technology being brought into Canada and then used to create jobs and economic activity.

OpenAI is keen to work together when sovereignty is all the rage because no country can truly go it alone when it comes to AI, Dev Saxena, a senior global affairs adviser with OpenAI, chimed in.

“No country can build the full tech stack end to end, it’s too expensive and resource consuming,” he said.

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For the technology to function, Lehane said it needs five elements – talent, capital, energy, data and chips – and no nation dominates all five.

While the U.S. has capital and is a major player in chip design, Canada is “way ahead” when it comes to talent and energy.

If the strategy Canada settles on wields both to its advantage, it will prevent a repeat of Lehane’s Maine parable and set the country up to be an AI powerhouse.

“I do think it is in a moment where it has the potential to take a great leap forward,” he said.

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Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2025.