Bell on Wednesday announced Bell AI Fabric, which it said will be the largest artificial intelligence compute project in Canada, starting with a data centre supercluster in British Columbia that will eventually provide up to 500 megawatts (MW) of hydroelectric-powered AI compute capacity across six facilities, the telecom said.
“Bell’s AI Fabric will ensure that Canadian businesses, researchers, and public institutions can access high-performance, sovereign and environmentally responsible AI computing services,” Bell President and CEO Mirko Bibic said in a press release. “Through this investment, Bell is immediately bolstering Canada’s sovereign AI compute capacity, while laying the groundwork to continue growing our AI economy. This is transformational for our customers, for Canada and for Bell.”
The first Bell AI Fabric facility is set to come online in June in Kamloops, B.C., in partnership with AI inference chip provider Groq, whose language processing units (LPUs) will power the 7 MW AI data centre. A second 7 MW facility is scheduled to open in Merritt, B.C., by the end of this year, Bell said.
Two additional 26 MW AI data centres are planned for Kamloops, with the first to open in 2026 at Thompson Rivers University, followed by a second in 2027.
Two other AI data centres with a combined capacity of more than 400 MW, designed for high-density AI workloads powered by hydroelectricity, are in advanced planning stages, according to Bell.
In addition, other facilities are planned across the country, which will take advantage of Bell’s nationwide real estate assets and will further add to Bell AI Fabric’s capacity, Bell said.
Referring to its partnership with Groq, Bell said the AI chip maker’s advanced LPUs “deliver faster inference performance than other processing units at significantly lower costs per token than existing market alternatives.”
“Groq’s advanced LPU technology, combined with Bell’s extensive fibre infrastructure, is setting a new standard in AI inference,” said Jonathan Ross, CEO and founder of Groq, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. “We’re excited to bring these capabilities to Canada, significantly enhancing performance and affordability for AI-driven applications.”
Bell isn’t the only Canadian telecom building AI compute facilities in Canada.
Telus announced in April it will open a “Sovereign AI Factory” in Rimouski, Que., this summer, followed by a second facility in Kamloops, B.C.
