Montreal company attracts video game interest with artificial intelligence

Aerospace. Military. Video games.

All three sectors have been good for Engenuity Technologies Inc., a Montreal company with expertise in military and aerospace simulation that has found video gaming a receptive market for its artificial intelligence tools.

By virtue of software named AI.implant, Engenuity Technologies now finds itself working with the likes of Midway and Vivendi Universal Games. A high-profile game under construction using the artificial intelligence software is Midway's Stranglehold, directed by John Woo (whose movie credits include Paycheck, Face/Off, and Broken Arrow).

The next generation of video game consoles has provided game designers with plenty of muscle under the hood, allowing them to fill the screen with soldiers, creatures or monsters to interact with the player.

To make the game work, such non-playing characters have to act normally, however. Watching a fellow soldier repeatedly walk into a wall or barrel destroys the gaming moment.

"We enable game developers to add intelligence to their games," summed up Engenuity's chief technology officer Paul Kruszewski.

It makes sense when you consider one of the AI.implant software's original target markets was movies, allowing filmmakers the ability to create virtual extras.

Kruszewski, 38, is the brains behind the AI.implant, and Engenuity spent nearly $1.7-million last November to acquire his company BGT BioGraphic Technologies to secure that expertise.

The Alberta native, who has a PhD in procedural modelling from McGill University, has been literally flying high ever since. His frequent flyer miles have ballooned as he travels to show off the company's tools.

"The Vivendi deal has really opened up the floodgates to evaluations," said Kruszewski.

Engenuity CEO Patrice Commune, a 47-year-old native of Paris, said the BGT purchase was motivated by several clients "who clearly told us that they would like to see more intelligence in the tools."

BGT did that, giving simulation engineers using the tools easy access to artificial intelligence.

For BGT, the move to Engenuity also made sense, providing resources the modest outfit lacked.

"BGT was a small company and it had the fundamentals of a small company in the sense that we had more good ideas than the capacity to get out to the marketplace," Kruszewski explained. "Everyone was wearing a million hats.

"With a larger company like Engenuity, we can just do way more in the sense that engineering and corporate capabilities catch up to the ideas. It has made for more marketing and better customer support."

BGT had six employees. Engenuity has 92.

The sale also allowed BGT to escape some $1.5 million in debt which Engenuity assumed.

Engenuity, founded in 1985 as Virtual Prototypes, had its own expertise in the military and aerospace fields. Current collaborations include Boeing on the 787 Dreamliner and Lockheed Martin on the US101, which is the new U.S. presidential helicopter. It also counts Airbus and BAE among its clients.

For the 787, Engenuity is supplying the tools to develop the graphics that will be displayed to the pilot in the cockpit. The presidential helicopter project is also using Engenuity tools to develop scenarios that the helicopter might find itself in and help engineers to make decisions.

Enhanced artificial intelligence can only help those projects. Engenuity says the ever changing technology of the gaming world is helping drive all of its innovation.

"Engenuity is able to pump out, by grace of working in the game community,technology much faster than any of its vid-sim competitors," said Kruszewski.

"It's just making us a better software company ultimately."

The company is big on video-simulation. Think of the TV show 24, when a member of the CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) is asked to run a scenario on a situation.Engenuity's tools do the same thing.

"It allows people to pre-visualize what might happen in a scenario before you send your troops into it," said company spokesman Andrew Elvish.

Soldiers in the real-world battlefield use Engenuity's tools, via a small notepad, to see what options they have in certain situations. They can also send the information back to off-site computers that can interpret the data and then send recommendations back.

The idea is to avoid making decisions in stressful circumstances.

Simulation is also becoming big in the homeland security area as government officials look at crowd scenarios such as emergency evacuations.

"The world of gaming and military simulation are merging and are merging very quickly. Effectively Engenuity bought BGT to accelerate that merger and drive it as a company," said Kruszewski.

"It really sets us ahead of any of our competitors," he added.

"With the acquisition of AI.implant, we feel we have that technological edge," echoed Commune.