The National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) will provide up to $800,000 in funding for Larus Technologies’ $1.7-million project to develop AI-powered technology that transforms natural language into “executable military scenarios for command and control, simulation, and training,” the firm said this week.
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An Ottawa company that develops AI tools for the military is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from the federal government.
The National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) will provide up to $800,000 in funding for Larus Technologies’ $1.7-million project to develop AI-powered technology that transforms natural language into “executable military scenarios for command and control, simulation, and training,” the firm said this week.
Larus said the platform, called Scenario GPT, “reduces scenario development time from weeks to minutes” while allowing organizations to prepare for a broader range of missions.
“Preparing for today's missions requires planning tools that can keep pace with an evolving operational environment,” Larus CEO George DiNardo said in a news release.
"This project advances ScenarioGPT's readiness for integration while enhancing its core capabilities. ScenarioGPT gives defence organizations a faster way to develop realistic scenarios while supporting the modernization priorities of the Canadian Armed Forces and our NATO partners."
The company said ScenarioGPT also has “broad dual-use applications for civilian markets,” including logistics, supply chain, route planning, emergency management, procurement and other areas.
Earlier this year, Larus was awarded an $8.3-million contract from the Department of National Defence to create new AI and machine-learning tools that will analyze large, complex data sets with the goal of helping military leaders “act faster and more precisely” when planning tactical operations.
Calian receives $47M NATO contract
Calian Group has been awarded a five-year contract worth about $47 million to continue providing scenario development support to the NATO Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) in Stavanger, Norway.
Under the contract, Calian will help design, develop and maintain “complex training scenarios that underpin NATO’s strategic and operational-level exercises,” the Kanata-based company said this week.
Calian said the scenarios “create realistic and evolving operating environments that challenge commanders and staff to make decisions, co-ordinate across domains and prepare for the increasingly complex security environment” facing NATO members.
“The security environment is changing quickly and NATO forces need training that reflects the complexity, uncertainty and pace of modern operations,” Roch Pelletier, Calian’s regional vice-president of defence, said in a news release.
Calian currently serves as a prime contractor supporting JWC and provides subject matter expertise for operational and strategic-level exercises.
Enablence touts higher revenues, new manufacturing site in Vietnam
Optical chip supplier Enablence Technologies said it expects revenues of between US$7.9 million and US$8.1 million for its fiscal year that ended on June 30.
The Kanata-based photonics firm, which trades on the TSX Venture Exchange, said it continues to see “robust market demand” for its products and is selling its wafers “as fast as they can be manufactured.”
Enablence said it’s now producing more than 4,000 wafers a month at its factory in Fremont, Calif., and expects production to exceed 4,500 wafers a month by the end of next year.
The company, which designs its chips in Kanata, said last month it raised $25 million in a private placement with Nova Scotia-based Collingwood Investments to expand output at its California plant and a facility in Vietnam that should be ready in 2027.
"While the fourth quarter ended with continued wafer-capacity constraints, we expect these to be temporary in nature,” CEO Todd Haugen said in a news release last month. “Our focus in fiscal 2027, as it was in fiscal 2026, is to invest in opportunities that help us accelerate our growth plan and ramp production capacity to support a robust order book.”
The company is now projecting revenues of between US$19 million and US$21 million in fiscal 2027.
Enablence was founded in 2006 and produces optical chip components used in data centres that serve tech giants such as Apple, Google and Meta.
The company is scheduled to announce its fiscal 2026 financial results next Thursday.
C-Com unveils new antenna system
C-Com Satellite Systems announced this week it has developed a new antenna for tracking moving platforms high above the Earth.
The Ottawa-based producer of commercial-grade auto-deploying satellite antenna systems said its new carbon-fibre-based product is designed “to ensure continuous reliable tracking of a moving stratospheric platform.”
The vehicle-mounted system maintains links to “flying cell towers” — unmanned vehicles that are deployed at a height of about 20 kilometres and can replace hundreds of ground-based cell towers.
C-Com says the mobile platform “can be rapidly deployed over a disaster area where terrestrial networks are unavailable or have been destroyed and deliver 4G/5G and 6G cellular coverage to unmodified cellphones with extremely low latency.”
C-Com has sold in excess of 11,000 antenna systems in more than 100 countries. The company, which trades on the TSX Venture Exchange, reported revenue of $1.7 million for the first half of fiscal 2026, down about $550,000 from the same period a year earlier.
BluMetric inks $2.7M contract extension for N.W.T. plant
BluMetric Environmental has signed a $2.7-million contract extension to operate and maintain a mine water treatment plant in the Northwest Territories for the 2027 operating season.
The plant treats water that is pumped from the mine and all contact water that is directed to and collected in the tailings ponds prior to its release into the environment.
In a news release, BluMetric CEO Scott MacFabe said the contract extension demonstrates the company’s “unique expertise” in the mining sector and its “continued collaboration with local, Indigenous resources.”
The Ottawa-based company, which specializes in water and wastewater solutions, serves customers in the commercial and industrial, military, mining and government sectors in Canada and the U.S.
BluMetric, which has more than 360 employees at 16 offices and three manufacturing facilities, had revenues of $62.6 million in fiscal 2025, nearly double the $34.8 million it brought in the previous year.
Thermal Energy’s sales heat up in fiscal 2026
Thermal Energy International generated record revenues of $33.6 million in fiscal 2026, up nearly 13 per cent from $29.8 million a year earlier.
The Ottawa-based company, which trades on the TSX Venture Exchange, also reported a record profit of $1.3 million in the 12-month period ending May 31, compared with net income of $158,000 in fiscal 2025.
Thermal Energy, which specializes in products that capture and recycle energy from boiler plants and steam operations, said its adjusted EBITDA increased 83.5 per cent year-over-year to $1.9 million.
The company also said its order intake rose more than 37 per cent in fiscal 2026 to a record $30 million.
“As we continue to expand relationships with large multinational customers, we are also executing on initiatives that make our solutions easier to deploy, more scalable, and increasingly attractive to companies seeking economically driven decarbonisation opportunities,” president and CEO William Crossland said in a news release. “We believe this combination positions us well for continued growth.”
