Montreal is set to host the “world’s largest robotics conference” later this month, unveiling the latest and greatest in robotics research and innovations from 71 countries.

The 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) will take place from May 20-24 at the Palais des congrès de Montréal (Montreal Convention Center), marking the first time that the conference — now in its 35th year — is being held in Canada. 

According to ICRA, global spending on robotics systems and drones are forecasted to hit $115.7 billion this year alone — an increase of 17 percent over 2018.

Gregory Dudek, the ICRA 2019 Conference Chair, says the event will be world’s largest robotics event, with more exhibiters, scientific papers and participants than any prior robotics event anywhere. Dudek is also Head of Samsung Montreal AI Center.

“ICRA will bring together the world’s top researchers and most important companies to share ideas and advances in the robotics field,” said Dudek. “Many of the most important developments in robotics and automation have historically been first exposed at ICRA, and 2019 will continue this trend.”

Organized by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the five-day event features 100 exhibits, live demos, research poster displays, conference sessions, robotics competitions and a unique robotic art exposition. All 1,200 research papers to be unveiled present novel never-before-published results.

ICRA 2019 is expected to attract about 4,000 academic and industry representatives. Some of the keynote speakers include Yoshua Bengio, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the Université de Montréal and recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence and deep learning; Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania; and Raquel Urtasun, Chief Scientist of Uber ATG and Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, among others.