TELUS has announced plans to establish its first Sovereign AI Factories in Rimouski, Quebec and Kamloops, British Columbia, positioning both communities at the forefront of Canada's next generation of sustainable and globally-competitive AI infrastructure. Aligned with the ambitious goals of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy to advance a secure and self-reliant digital economy, this pioneering initiative will provide sovereign, high-performance AI computing resources to power the nation's digital future.
As the first North American service provider to become an official NVIDIA Cloud Partner, TELUS will deploy NVIDIA's latest Hopper- and Blackwell-based supercomputers at these facilities. The first facility will commence operations this summer in Rimouski, Quebec, followed by expansion to TELUS' second facility in Kamloops, British Columbia.
TELUS' Sovereign AI Factories will be fully owned, operated and secured on Canadian soil by a Canadian company — ensuring that the compute power and intellectual property fueling AI development remain within the country. This helps ensure data security and privacy in critical and sensitive sectors such as healthcare, finance and public services.
Designed with sustainability at their core, the TELUS AI Factories are powered by 99% renewable energy and are among the most environmentally sustainable data centres in the world. Their revolutionary natural cooling systems reduce water consumption by more than 75% compared to traditional data centres, saving 17 million litres of water per year.
Darren Entwistle, President and CEO, TELUS
Our Sovereign AI Factories are the first of their kind in Canada and represent a key step forward in our country's AI journey. Located within TELUS' state-of-the-art data centres in Rimouski and Kamloops, these powerful and secure facilities will ensure every piece of data, every computation and every breakthrough will be born and remain within our borders. This will not only make Canada even more competitive and future-ready, it will also enable the acceleration of innovations in key areas of importance in the hearts and minds of Canadians, such as health, sustainability and agriculture. Importantly, this initiative will strengthen our nation's ability to develop advanced AI technology and increase productivity, empowering homegrown businesses and Canadian researchers to innovate courageously and compete on the global stage.
