Bell announced Monday a partnership with the Government of Saskatchewan that will see Bell AI Fabric build a 300-megawatt (MW) data centre in the rural municipality of Sherwood, Saskatchewan, just outside of Regina.
Planning approvals and permits are underway, with construction scheduled to begin this spring, Bell said in a press release. The first stage of the facility’s phased rollout is expected to come online in the first half of 2027.
Bell said this project is its largest-ever investment in Saskatchewan. The construction of the data centre will require approximately $1.7 billion of incremental capital expenditures, with roughly $1.3 billion expected to be incurred in 2026, funded through a combination of debt and cash-on-hand, according to Bell’s press release.
Once complete, the facility in Sherwood will be the largest purpose-built AI data centre development anywhere in Canada, according to Bell.
“Importantly, a significant portion of the facility’s power will be dedicated to sovereign AI compute, ensuring that government agencies, researchers and enterprises in Canada can access top-tier AI power while guaranteeing their data remains with Canada, meeting strict chain-of-custody and residency requirements,” Bell’s release said.
Cerebras and CoreWeave have been secured as tenants for the new facility and will supply the compute hardware. Cerebras will provide Bell AI Fabric customers access to its wafer-scale technology, which will deliver large-scale, high-performance AI inference and training capacity. CoreWeave will deliver cutting-edge, scalable AI compute hosted on NVIDIA graphic processing units (GPUs).
Bell is partnering with Saskatchewan utilities SaskPower and SaskEnergy and telecom SaskTel to power and connect the facility. Through an agreement with SaskPower, the facility will draw its power from the provincial grid’s standard energy mix, with electricity provided by a dedicated industrial feed that is separate from the residential system. SaskEnergy will provide a fully resilient natural gas supply to meet the facility’s back-up generator needs. Bell said no municipal water will be used to cool the data centre as it will operate a closed-loop cooling system.
Through its agreement with SaskTel, the data centre will be linked to Bell’s national fibre backbone. Bell and SaskTel will act as go-to-market partners, offering AI-powered products and solutions to SaskTel customers.
As part of its partnership with the Saskatchewan government, Bell will support strategic AI use cases for Saskatchewan postsecondary institutions, municipalities and the public sector. Bell said it will also explore opportunities for collaboration with students and faculty from Saskatchewan Polytechnic and the University of Regina.
In addition, Bell has entered into an agreement with the George Gordon First Nation with a focus on Indigenous procurement participation and workforce development. Bell is also in discussions regarding a district energy system that would enable waste heat reuse on nearby university campuses and in a development project led by George Gordon Developments Ltd., located directly north of the site.
Over time, the facility is projected to generate economic value of up to $12 billion for the province of Saskatchewan, including short- and long-term job creation, tax revenues and broader economic benefits, Bell said. Construction will support at least 800 jobs in the trades and engineering, with at least 80 full-time roles created once the facility is fully operational, according to Bell. Furthermore, as many as 750 additional community jobs could result from a large data centre deployment of this nature, based on industry research, Bell said.
“Bell is drawing on its historic roots as a Canadian technology leader and nation builder through ambitious projects like Bell AI Fabric, by building a digital backbone to power the future of the Canadian economy,” Mirko Bibic, president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada, said in the company’s press release. “Today’s announcement is an exciting illustration of the impact of Bell’s strategic priority to lead in enterprise with AI-powered solutions. Our largest-ever investment in Saskatchewan will deliver the cutting-edge, high-performance compute necessary to innovate at speed, bring major economic benefits to the province and create a competitive advantage for our country. We’re thrilled to partner with the Government of Saskatchewan to ensure Canada can compete and win in the AI economy.”
Given the expected positive financial impact of the new data centre, Bell updated its 2026 financial guidance targets on Monday. While its updated 2026 guidance for revenue growth shows no change from its prior guidance, Bell’s 2025-2028 updated financial outlook projects higher revenue compound annual growth rate over the 2025-2028 period of 2.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent, compared to its 2028 prior outlook of 2 per cent to 4 per cent.
Bell said it is also increasing its objective for AI-powered solutions revenue from approximately $1.5 billion by 2028 to approximately $2 billion by 2028.
