Telus announced Tuesday it plans to establish its first Sovereign AI Factories in Rimouski, Que., and Kamloops, B.C., with the former facility starting operations this summer followed by expansion to the latter facility.
Originally announced in March, Telus’s Sovereign AI Factories are designed to be secure facilities providing Canadian businesses and researchers access to supercomputers and software needed to train AI and to help develop AI products, while keeping data safe within Canada’s borders.
“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,” a Telus press release said.
Telus’s 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,” the release said.
“Our Sovereign AI Factories are the first of their kind in Canada and represent a key step forward in our country’s AI journey,” Darren Entwistle, president and CEO of Telus, said in the release. “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.”
By strategically positioning these AI hubs in both eastern and western Canada, Telus said it “is ensuring equitable access to advanced computing resources while strengthening the nation’s technological leadership.”
The Sovereign AI Factories also build on the innovation Telus is delivering with Fuel iX, its enterprise-grade generative AI platform empowering organizations with advanced and secure AI capabilities, Telus said.
