MONTREAL -- Jumio has opened an artificial intelligence lab in Montreal, adding to the city's ranks of machine-learning firms.

The Silicon Valley company says it plans to work on fraud detection and data extraction as part of a push toward refined identity verification.

Jumio says the satellite lab, which numbers seven employees after quietly opening last month, will have 30 engineers and specialists by the end of next year. The lab expands on work underway at the company's Vienna-based AI hub.

Over the past year, Ottawa and Quebec have pledged more than $300 million toward AI development in Montreal, while tech giants Google and Microsoft Corp. have invested in machine learning research.

Startups in the city are exploiting AI to build technology applicable to everything from tumour detection to navigating the immigration process.

In 2016, Jumio filed for bankruptcy protection for its U.S. business following government investigations into financial irregularities, but raised US$15 million in funding a few months later.

This article originally appeared in CTV News