Glossary

Canadian tech terms, explained.

Clear definitions of the technical, financial, and policy terms used in Canadian tech.

Entries

Inference

The stage where a trained model is used to produce answers, predictions, or actions.

Definition: Inference is what happens after a model is trained. It is the process of using the model in production to classify, generate, rank, or recommend outputs.
Why it matters: Inference economics often decide whether an AI product is scalable, profitable, or stuck in pilot mode.

Aliases

model servingproduction AI

A quantum approach for solving certain optimization problems.

Definition: Quantum annealing is a method that uses quantum effects to search for low-energy states, which can help solve some optimization problems faster or more elegantly than classical methods.
Why it matters: When a story mentions quantum annealing, the practical question is whether the use case is a real optimization win or just a speculative demo.

Aliases

annealingoptimization problem

A large language model built to understand and generate text.

Definition: LLM stands for large language model. It is a model trained on large text datasets so it can summarize, draft, translate, answer, and transform language in useful ways.
Why it matters: LLM coverage usually signals that product, data, and governance choices are about to matter more than the demo itself.

Aliases

large language model