Housing crisis requires builders to embrace AI and automation – Toronto Star

Cities remain the economic engine of Canada. Through lockdowns and travel restrictions, the march of urbanization with all of its benefits and daunting challenges barely missed a step. Canadas urban areas continued to grow in 2020 and today four out of five Canadians live in cities.

While COVID-19 will not reverse urbanization trends, it has exposed the vast inequalities of urban housing. The gap between the demand and supply of affordable housing has only widened over the course of the pandemic as real estate prices hit historic highs. According to a new report from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Vancouver and Toronto are now two of the most unaffordable housing markets in the world (no Canadian city housing market is deemed affordable by the report). In Toronto, current demand for housing is expanding at an annual rate of 50,000 units. Over the past five years, however, new construction has averaged under 9,000 units. Simply put, the construction industry cannot keep pace.

Meanwhile, the industry faces an environmental reckoning. Buildings generate nearly 40 per cent of annual global greenhouse-gas emissions, and material production, transportation, and the construction processes accounts for about one-quarter of a buildings total carbon emissions. Inevitably, to meet Canadas carbon-reduction targets, builders must address the waste and inefficiencies that have become inherent in any construction project.

When it comes to increasing supply through more sustainable processes, the housing industry continues to deploy 19th-century approaches to tackle 21st-century problems. Construction remains among the very least digitized sectors of the economy, just above hunting and agriculture. Low profit margins, complex supply chains and the cyclical nature of the business model have prevented the industry from adopting new technologies that could bring higher productivity. Not surprisingly, the construction industry is the only sector to have experienced a decline in labour productivity since the 1960s.

Compounding the industrys stalled productivity is a growing shortage of skilled labour. Over 20 per cent of skilled labour in housing construction is expected to retire in the coming years. In Toronto alone, the housing sector faces job shortages of over 100,000 skilled workers. If alternatives to how homes are built are not embraced, these labour realities will further strain Canadas housing market.

Now is the time for the industry to embrace the opportunities afforded by deeper digital integration. From manufacturing to mining, almost every facet of our economy has made use of the efficiencies and scale afforded by technology. Bringing robotics, AI and advanced manufacturing to housing construction will usher in a new era of sustainable construction. It will create new categories of jobs, generate significantly less waste and, ultimately, add more buildings much faster to Canadas housing stock.

Weve seen how applying automation to housing can work. One of the most advanced prefab factories in North America, responsible for over six million square feet of some of the highest quality and sustainable homes constructed in North America, was built in Edmonton. This real-world proof of concept was the brainchild of Reza Nasseri, a pioneer in industrialized construction and homebuilding. Today, with investments from PSP Investments and Radical Ventures, he and I are launching Promise Robotics, a robotics platform to help the construction industry access new methods of production in homebuilding.

There is no reason why building affordable homes cannot resemble the highly automated factory floors of the worlds most advanced manufacturing facilities, using computer vision and AI-powered robotics to create sustainable custom homes in a fraction of the current time. Canada is well-positioned to seize upon this opportunity home to one of the largest concentrations of AI talent, the country is a world leader in fundamental AI research that could be leveraged for advanced automation.

Looking further down the supply chain, Canada has the raw materials to support a massive expansion in affordable and sustainable housing construction. Housing presents a unique opportunity to bridge our vast resource economy with the tech talent of Canadas innovation economy. By helping builders, real estate developers and other industry professionals leverage the efficiencies of industrialized automation, we will usher in a new era of sustainable construction.

Affordable housing is not a challenge unique to Canada. Anemic housing construction is a global crisis in the making. Today, four billion people live in cities around the world. That number will swell to seven billion by 2050. Canada has the know-how to become a global leader in 21st-century sustainable housing. We can start by addressing the affordable housing crisis in our own backyard.

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Ramtin Attar is co-founder (with and Reza Nasseri) of Promise Robotics, an automation platform for the construction of more affordable and sustainable homes.

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Housing crisis requires builders to embrace AI and automation - Toronto Star