CAFAI (AI Computing Access Fund) is a federal program providing Canadian businesses — especially SMEs — with subsidized access to the high-performance computing infrastructure needed to train and deploy AI models. It directly offsets the compute costs that are often the primary barrier to AI development.

CAFAI covers HPC cluster access, cloud GPU computing for model training, inference infrastructure costs, and data storage for AI training datasets. It targets the specific hardware-level compute costs that make AI development expensive for smaller companies.

Yes. AI development projects often generate SR&ED claims on the R&D labor and experimentation side, while CAFAI covers the compute infrastructure costs. Hubvention structures both claims in parallel, ensuring no double-counting while maximizing total recovery.

CAFAI provides non-repayable contributions — effectively grants — to cover qualifying AI compute costs. No repayment is required as long as the company meets program conditions.

Qualifying AI projects include developing proprietary ML models, fine-tuning foundation models for industry-specific applications, building AI-powered products, deploying computer vision or NLP systems at scale, and running large-scale AI experiments that require significant compute.

Yes — CAFAI is a federal program available to all Canadian companies including Quebec-based ones. Hubvention frequently combines CAFAI (federal compute subsidy) with CDAE-IA (Quebec AI tax credit) and SR&ED for maximum coverage of AI development costs.

CAFAI applications are submitted through the designated federal portal with a project brief, technical description of computing needs, and financial model. Hubvention prepares the complete application and coordinates with the administering agency.

Hubvention handles the full CAFAI mandate: project scoping for AI compute requirements, technical brief preparation, financial modelling, and submission. We stack CAFAI with SR&ED and CDAE-IA to build the most comprehensive AI project funding package available to Canadian SMEs.