The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is partnering with the Creative Destruction Lab to deepen its knowledge of cutting-edge technologies.
Founded by Ajay Agrawal, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the CDL is a seed-stage investment program, connecting science-based business ideas with investors.
“This is a unique partnership,” said Sonia Sennik, executive director of the CDL, in a press release. “It’s not every day we see a collaboration between a large-scale asset management organization and a high-tech university startup program. However, we have a shared vision regarding the role of technological advancement in industrial evolution. We are both optimistic about the value we can bring to each other to enhance our competitiveness in our respective markets.”
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Through the partnership, the CPPIB is looking to understand more about how emerging technologies in artificial intelligence and energy sectors can have an impact on its current investment holdings and future opportunities.
“At CPPIB, we’re in the business of the future,” said Mark Machin, president and chief executive officer of the CPPIB. “To fund pensions for decades, we need to be immersed in the sectors and ideas that will come to define the economies of the times.
“Future benefits will be paid in part by investments in companies that are only now being founded, just as today’s pensions are being paid by many companies that were nascent when contributions were beginning. By learning from entrepreneurs who are leading the evolution in such industries as energy, and others who are forging emerging industries such as AI, we can help build and support that future.”