Mastercard Announces $510 Million Cybersecurity and Tech Innovation Facility in Vancouver

Mastercard and the Government of Canada have announced a new $510 million facility for the city of Vancouver that will focus on cybersecurity and tech innovation.

The project was announced by Mastercard and federal Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, and will include a $49 million subsidy from the federal government.

According to a statement made by Mastercard, the new Global Intelligence and Cyber Centre will “accelerate innovation in digital and cyber security, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.”

The new centre will create 270 new jobs, as well as adding about 100 positions from NuData security, a behavioral biometrics specialist that was acquired by Mastercard in 2017. Ministry of Innovation officials also said the centre will add about 100 new co-op positions.

“The centre will focus on creating technologies and standards to ensure that Canadians and others around the world can safely use any device that could be connected to the Internet—phone, tablet, computer, vehicle—without concern that their personal and financial information could be stolen,” the ministry said in a media release.

The facility will be housed in Vancouver’s Old Stock Exchange building, currently the home of NuData. It will be one of six similar facilities Mastercard operates around the globe “and will develop cyber solutions for the payments ecosystem globally.”

Mastercard says among the new jobs that will be created will be positions for software engineers, data scientists and information security experts.

Source: Global News

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January 27, 2020 – by Tony Bitzionis