Telus partners with Nvidia to transform its data centre into a Canadian “Sovereign AI Factory”

Canadian telecommunications giant Telus has partnered with global semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia to upgrade the artificial intelligence (AI) compute power of its Rimouski, Que. data centre and turn it into a “Sovereign AI Factory.”

Announced today at Nvidia’s GTC conference for AI developers, Telus is using its newfound status as an official Nvidia Cloud Partner to deploy the latest generation of Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) at its Rimouski, Que. data centre by this summer. Supercomputers using Nvidia’s AI-focused Hopper and Blackwell chip architecture will power the data centre, enabling faster AI model training, fine-tuning, and advanced inference capabilities, according to the Canadian telecom giant.

“Canadians can build, train, scale and deploy AI in a secure environment compliant with Canada’s security standards and privacy regulations.”

The upgraded data centre is a “super-secure facility” that aims to help Canadian businesses and researchers develop AI products by providing the supercomputers and software needed to train AI while keeping data within Canada’s borders, Telus said in a statement.

Telus also plans to expand the effort to its Kamloops, BC data centre at some point in the future. 

“With the Sovereign AI Factory, we’re now giving our customers the accelerated computing power needed to grow, compete globally and shape the future of AI — right here in Canada,” Telus chief information officer Hesham Fahmy said in a statement. “Collaborating with Nvidia gives us the advanced computing capabilities needed to drive Canadian AI innovation while strengthening Canadian digital independence.”

The data centre upgrade comes as Canada attempts to stay in the international race for AI computing power. In January, the United States announced a $500-billion partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank to build out AI infrastructure, while the Canadian government launched the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy this past December.

RELATED: Canadian government opens $300-million AI Compute Access Fund in latest AI commitment

The strategy outlines how Canada will deploy $2 billion CAD for AI computing power and finance the expansion of commercial AI data centres in Canada. The feds committed an initial investment of up to $240 million CAD to Toronto-based AI startup Cohere to build a multibillion-dollar AI data centre in the country. The Province of Alberta is also trying to position itself as a leader in the space, publishing its own AI data centre strategy with hopes of attracting $100 billion in investment to the province.  

Data centres and AI consume a notorious amount of energy, with data centre power demand expected to grow 160 percent by 2030 due to increased AI use, according to a May 2024 report from Goldman Sachs. Such use could potentially cause data centres to account for up to four percent of overall power consumption worldwide by the end of the decade, and double their current carbon emissions. 

Telus claims that the upgraded data centre will use its fibre-optic network powered by 99 percent renewable energy sources, primarily receiving hydroelectric power, and that its data centres use less electricity to power AI computing workloads. Telus also claimed its facilities rely on “natural cooling” to cut water consumption by more than 75 percent compared to traditional data centres.

Telus is one of the companies that has signed on to the federal government’s voluntary AI code of conduct on the responsible development and management of advanced generative AI systems. Unveiled in September 2023, the code identifies measures that organizations are encouraged to apply to their operations when they are developing and managing general-purpose generative AI systems. The code outlines key measures organizations can adopt to mitigate the limitations of AI, and encourages principles such as transparency, fairness and equity, and accountability.

“By using this secure, high-performance AI Factory, Canadian businesses can develop local solutions to local challenges, ensuring Canadians can build, train, scale and deploy AI in a secure environment compliant with Canada’s security standards and privacy regulations,” Telus said in a statement. 

Another company with strong Canadian ties announced a Nvidia partnership at GTC. Mountain View, Calif.-based autonomous trucking startup Gatik, which has an office in Toronto and some Canadian investors, will develop and deploy Nvidia’s DRIVE AGX in-vehicle compute architecture across its fleet of driverless freight vehicles. Gatik said in a statement that the partnership will help in deploying its autonomous trucks at scale across new markets for customers such as Walmart, Kroger, and Tyson Foods.

Feature image courtesy Scott Rodgerson via Unsplash.