David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Professor Pascal Poupart has received a $50,000 grant from CIBC to support artificial intelligence research through PhD-level training. The award marks the first research collaboration between CIBC and the University of Waterloo focusing specifically on AI, and reflects the bank’s commitment to growing AI talent in Canada by funding doctoral research.

Titled Representation Learning for Tabular Data with Heterogeneous Feature Types, the CIBC-funded research will support PhD candidate William Loh, who is supervised by Professor Poupart.

In the age of AI, many are concerned about the impacts it could have on career prospects. AI has already automated some tasks, and media reports have specifically discussed the impacts of AI on entry-level jobs in coding.

However, students and alumni at the University of Waterloo are much more optimistic about the future, and the general sentiment is that AI presents opportunities, not threats.

Among the six 2025 Co-op Student of the Year winners is Vinayak Bector, a fourth-year Computer Science Student. While working at xAI as a web developer, he made significant improvements to the company’s codebase and Grok translation pipeline.