Image courtesy Trending Stratford on Twitter
Ontario will reportedly announce today $80 million in funding for autonomous vehicle research, which will be distributed to projects located throughout the province.
According to information reported by the Stratford Beacon Herald received from an unnamed source in advance of the government's official announcement this afternoon, the biggest chunk of money will go to that southern Ontario city to build on its status as a self-driving vehicle demonstration hub.
Other southern Ontario centres set to benefit include London and Windsor, which will split $5 million, while Kitchener-Waterloo, already known as a tech-intensive municipality, will receive $5 million of its own.
Oshawa's University of Ontario Institute of Technology, McMaster University in Hamilton and the University of Ottawa will each also get allocations of $5 million.
Each of the pots of money is intended to turn those cities and institutions into regional innovation centres that will develop technology for autonomous and connected vehicles, which will be tested in Stratford.
Testing will take place at a facility built earlier this year by a company called Renesas Electronics America. It's located a little more than a kilometre to the southeast of the city's downtown.
