PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Nicolas Chapados

Nicolas Chapados is a machine learning researcher and company builder whose work covers time-series forecasting and language-model agents. He earned a computer engineering degree at McGill in 1995 and a PhD in machine learning at the Université de Montréal in 2009, and in 2001 he co-founded ApSTAT Technologies with his thesis supervisor Yoshua Bengio. Imagia followed in 2015 for cancer imaging, and Element AI in 2016, which ServiceNow acquired in January 2021. From 2021 to 2025 he was Vice-President, Research at ServiceNow, leading its AI Research team and coauthoring TACTiS in 2022 and the Context is Key benchmark in 2025. He is Vice-President, Research at Nera and an adjunct professor at Polytechnique Montréal.

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Timeline

  1. 1995–2009

    Degrees at McGill and Montréal

    He earns a bachelor of engineering in computer engineering at McGill University in 1995. At the Université de Montréal he completes an MSc in machine learning in 2000 and a PhD in machine learning in 2009, with Yoshua Bengio as his thesis supervisor.

  2. 2001

    Co-founding ApSTAT Technologies

    In 2001, together with his thesis supervisor Yoshua Bengio, he co-founds ApSTAT Technologies, a machine learning technology transfer firm. The firm applies academic research to actuarial risk modeling, business forecasting, supply chain planning, national defense and portfolio management.

  3. 2015

    Co-founding Imagia

    In 2015, with help from Yoshua Bengio, he co-founds Imagia alongside his long-time friend Alexandre Le Bouthillier. The AI healthcare company develops digital medical innovations for cancer patients.

  4. 2016–2021

    Co-founding Element AI

    Element AI is founded in October 2016 by Jean-François Gagné with co-founders including Yoshua Bengio and Chapados, who serves as its chief scientist. ServiceNow completes its acquisition of the Montreal company for approximately $230 million USD in January 2021.

  5. 2021–2025

    Leading ServiceNow AI Research

    From 2021 to 2025, he works as Vice-President, Research at ServiceNow Inc. and leads the ServiceNow AI Research team.

  6. 2022

    The TACTiS forecasting model

    In 2022, he coauthors TACTiS with Alexandre Drouin and Étienne Marcotte for the Thirty-ninth International Conference on Machine Learning. The transformer-based model estimates joint predictive distributions for high-dimensional multivariate time series and supports both forecasting and interpolation.

  7. 2025

    The Context is Key benchmark

    In 2025, the International Conference on Machine Learning publishes Context is Key, a forecasting benchmark he coauthors with Andrew Robert Williams, Arjun Ashok, Alexandre Drouin and others. The benchmark pairs numerical time series with textual context that a model needs to solve each task.

  8. As of October 2026

    Research vice-president at Nera

    He is Vice-President, Research at Nera, an associate industry member of Mila and an adjunct professor in applied mathematics at Polytechnique Montréal. His research topics include deep learning, LLM agents, reasoning and time series forecasting.

Career

  1. NowNeraVice-President, Research
  2. NowPolytechnique MontréalAdjunct Professor in Applied Mathematics
  3. 2021–2025ServiceNowVice-President, Research
  4. 2016–2021Element AICo-founder and Chief Scientist
  5. From 2015ImagiaCo-founder
  6. From 2001ApSTAT TechnologiesCo-founder

Education

  1. 2009Université de MontréalPhD in Machine Learning
  2. 2000Université de MontréalMSc in Machine Learning
  3. 1995McGill UniversityBEng in Computer Engineering

From the biography.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Nicolas Chapados. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Polytechnique Montréal. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Polytechnique Montréal. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Polytechnique Montréal. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Nicolas Chapados | ApSTAT Technologies apstat.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Startupfest | Nicolas Chapados startupfest.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Imagia develops digital medical innovations that improve the health of cancer patients and those afflicted with other high-burden diseases innovationsoftheworld.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Element AI en.wikipedia.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. ServiceNow closes $230 million USD acquisition of Montreal's Element AI betakit.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. TACTiS: Transformer-Attentional Copulas for Time Series arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Context is Key: A Benchmark for Forecasting with Essential Textual Information proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Nicolas Chapados | Mila mila.quebec. Checked 22 October 2026.