Major Canadian Tech Collaboration to Power Sovereign AI from BC Data Centre

A slew of organizations are collaborating on a “major AI infrastructure deal.”

Bell Canada, Cohere, Hypertec, and Hive Digital Technologies subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing are combining forces toward development and deployment of advanced AI workloads on sovereign Canadian infrastructure, according to an official statement.

“Canada cannot compete in the global AI economy without the infrastructure, talent, and partnerships to support it,” posits Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon.

This collaboration “brings those elements together,” he says, “linking infrastructure, compute, and advanced AI capabilities in a way that helps support organizations strengthen control over data and innovation.”

The previously announced partnership connects Bell AI Fabric’s data centre, Cohere’s enterprise-grade large language model capabilities, and BUZZ HPC’s scalable computing infrastructure—all powered by NVIDIA’s DSX AI factory platform and built on hardware manufactured in Canada by Hypertec.

Craig Tavares, COO of BUZZ HPC, says that AI cannot “scale on ideas alone.”

“It scales on data centres, specialized GPU compute, sophisticated models and operational execution,” he says.

The partnership “brings together a combination of capabilities that does not exist anywhere else in Canada toda,” according to Tavares, including “Bell’s national platform, Cohere’s world-class enterprise AI models, Hypertec’s Canadian-built GPU servers, and BUZZ’s AI factory expertise and sovereign AI cloud powered by NVIDIA’s full-stack AI factory platform.”

“It solves a real national gap: giving Canada the sovereign AI infrastructure required to turn ambition into impact,” Tavares stated.

Cohere will “operate its AI models in Bell AI Fabric infrastructure, enabled by the combined capabilities of Hypertec and BUZZ HPC,” commented Michel Richer, President of Bell AI Fabric.

“This agreement underscores the role Bell AI Fabric is playing in helping organizations move from experimentation to production on infrastructure that is located, operated and governed in Canada,” he remarked.

Under the agreement, Bell will provide data centre capacity and connectivity services from its British Columbia facility in Merritt, while BUZZ HPC will deliver an AI-native cloud layer using Hypertec’s Canadian-built hardware cluster and NVIDIA computing, and Cohere will use the platform to support secure enterprise-grade AI solutions for government and enterprise customers.

“This collaboration gives Cohere another way to support customers in Canada with advanced AI that is built for real use, on infrastructure that reflects Canadian priorities,” stated Michael Pelosi, Country Manager of Canada for Cohere.

“Through this partnership, we are combining cutting-edge compute infrastructure with the deployment, integration, and service capabilities required to operate next-generation AI environments reliably and efficiently,” commented Hypertec president Don Schlidt.