Bell and Saskatchewan plan 1.2GW AI hub expansion project

Bell Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand Bell AI Fabric in Saskatchewan, outlining up to 900 megawatts of additional capacity.

According to the two parties, the expansion would create a path to a 1.2-gigawatt AI infrastructure hub in the province. If fully built out, it could become the largest capital investment in Saskatchewan's history.

The memorandum is non-binding, and development would proceed in phases. Progress would depend on customer commitments, commercial agreements, permits, approvals, and any required environmental assessments.

Under the arrangement, Bell AI Fabric would establish the head office of its national ecosystem in Saskatchewan. That would place the province at the centre of Bell's domestic AI infrastructure plans and align the project with Saskatchewan's data centre framework.

The proposed additional power supply would come from partner-developed natural gas generation. The facilities would also use closed-loop cooling technology and would not require municipal water.

If completed at full scale, the total capital investment tied to the project - including data centre infrastructure, tenant compute, and related power generation - could exceed USD $50 billion, according to Bell. The build-out could support 800 to 1,200 construction, engineering, and technical jobs, along with as many as 600 permanent operations and management roles.

A deployment of this size could also lead to as many as 3,000 offsite and community jobs, based on precedents in other markets. Bell said it plans to work with Saskatchewan suppliers, Indigenous partners, and post-secondary institutions to develop skills and supply chains in the province.

Scale of project

The announcement reflects growing competition among provinces and telecommunications groups to secure a larger share of the infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence computing. Demand for power, land, and data centre capacity has risen as governments and companies seek domestic facilities for processing and storing data.

For Saskatchewan, the project would be an attempt to use energy supply and land availability to attract large technology investments that have often flowed to bigger urban markets. For Bell, it would deepen its move beyond connectivity services into the physical infrastructure needed to host AI workloads in Canada.

Data sovereignty also featured prominently in the announcement. Bell said the Saskatchewan expansion aligns with its commitments to Canadian control and domestic data storage, themes that have become more prominent as organisations weigh where to place sensitive data and computing resources.

Mirko Bibic, President and Chief Executive Officer of BCE and Bell Canada, said the project is intended to support domestic AI deployment across public- and private-sector users.

"Canada's next generation of economic growth will be built on Canadian infrastructure. By creating a path to 1.2 GW of AI capacity in Saskatchewan, Bell AI Fabric will give governments, businesses, researchers and innovators the secure, sovereign foundation they need to deploy AI at scale and compete globally. AI infrastructure is critical infrastructure, and we are proud to be building the additional compute capacity required to power Canada's future economy," Bibic said.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe linked the proposal to jobs and domestic control over data.

"This historic investment will create thousands of good jobs and new opportunities for Saskatchewan people. It will also strengthen Canadian data sovereignty by keeping Canadian data here at home, stored by a Canadian company and protected under Canadian rules. When it comes to data storage, keeping that home ice advantage means Canadians set the rules and remain in control," Moe said.

Even so, the project remains subject to significant conditions before construction reaches the scale outlined in the memorandum. Those include securing customers for the planned capacity, completing commercial negotiations, obtaining regulatory approvals, and meeting environmental requirements.

The power model may also draw scrutiny because the added electricity supply is expected to come from natural gas generation rather than the grid. That approach could help meet the heavy power demands of AI data centres while raising broader questions about energy mix and emissions as provinces compete for large digital infrastructure developments.

Bell said the facilities would be built in phases as demand is secured, with the long-term aim of creating a 1.2-gigawatt AI hub in Saskatchewan.