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.

ISAIC, the Industry Sandbox & AI Computing, is a not-for-profit cloud provider serving industry in Canada. It offers a secure environment featuring Virtual Machines equipped with CPU, GPU, and Storage options—all priced affordably—to facilitate the development of Proof-of-Concepts (PoC), Minimum Viable Products (MVP), and Pilots for various data and AI/ML products. What sets us apart from other cloud providers? No egress fees: We ensure that you can access and transfer your data without incurring additional costs. Your Intellectual Property (IP) Rights: With ISAIC, the IP rights to your creations remain yours. Vendor-neutral: Our services are compatible with a wide range of technologies, giving you the freedom to choose the best tools for your project. Local Presence: We are proudly based in Edmonton, providing a local option for data storage and cloud services.

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.

We're here to support you at any stage of your AI/ML journey, but many of our clients find us especially valuable in two key scenarios: Before securing VC funding: When you're bootstrapping or in early stages, our cost-effective solutions can help you make significant progress without breaking the bank. After exhausting free cloud credits: As those initial offers from hyperscalers run out, our services provide an economical alternative for continued development. While many of our clients run production operations on major cloud platforms, they often turn to ISAIC to accelerate their AI training iteration cycles and R&D efforts. We offer a sweet spot of performance and affordability that's perfect for intensive development work, helping you innovate faster and more efficiently. Whether you're launching a pilot project, testing ideas with a PoC, or building your MVP, ISAIC is ready to power your AI ambitions – from scrappy startups to established companies exploring new frontiers in AI.

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. 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 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!

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 three main CPU Configurations: 16 cores with 64 to 128GB RAM and 256 to 512GB storage 32 cores with 128 to 256GB RAM and 256 to 512GB storage 64 cores with 256 to 512GB RAM and 256 to 512GB storage 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 Estimator 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 Estimator to see how these savings add up for your specific configuration!

Our on-demand option offers flexibility with a unique advantage: your resources are guaranteed to be available whenever you need them—no competing for compute power or unexpected availability issues. This premium reservation service ensures your specific VM configuration is always ready, with the 100-hour minimum (just over 3 hours daily) allowing us to maintain this dedicated availability while you only pay for what you use beyond that minimum. What's more, our stable environment with consistent hardware and firmware configurations is essential for AI model development repeatability. This consistency minimizes infrastructure variability, ensuring your models maintain accuracy across iterations and providing the predictability needed for result validation and reproducibility. It's our way of balancing flexibility with reliability for your AI projects.

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 pay is regarded as their contribution to supporting this infrastructure.

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 an hour, or stay with us monthly or annually – whatever works best for you. If you prefer more flexible usage, our on-demand option allows you to pay hourly (with a 100-hour minimum per month) and shut down VMs when not in use to optimize your costs based on your specific workloads.