Telus is looking to turn a Québec fishing hub into one of Canada’s AI hotspots.
Driving the news: In partnership with Nvidia, Telus has opened what it calls Canada’s first-ever sovereign AI factory in Rimouski, Québec. The facility is built to handle the full AI lifecycle — building, customizing, and operating large language models — all without any data leaving Canada.
- The first slate of customers for the AI factory includes Nvidia, Accenture, League, and Open Text.
Why it matters: Domestic AI infrastructure is crucial for Canadian organizations like healthcare providers, banks, and government agencies that deal with highly sensitive information.
- Under U.S. law, the government can force American cloud providers like Amazon or Google to fork over customer data, regardless of what country it’s from. Telus says laws like that would not apply to its facility.
Zoom out: Canada’s not alone. Countries in the EU have focused on building more domestic AI factories, which Nvidia CEO (and leather jacket enthusiast) Jensen Huang has said will become “the bedrock of modern economies across the world.”
Bottom line: Telus is betting that customers will pay a premium for AI sovereignty, even if U.S. alternatives are cheaper. This will be the first real test of how many Canadian companies are truly willing to pay up for that security.—LA