Bell and Buzz HPC’s main goal is to provide secure access to large-scale AI computing resources located entirely within Canada
In sum – what to know:
Canada gains sovereign AI capacity – Buzz HPC and Bell Canada are building a nationwide AI infrastructure using Nvidia GPUs, fully hosted in Canadian-owned facilities to meet strict data residency rules.
Deployment starts in Manitoba – The rollout begins later this year with a 5 MW site, expanding into additional Bell AI Fabric data centers across multiple provinces to create nationwide access.
Focus on secure innovation – The infrastructure is designed to power foundational AI models, industry applications, and government projects while keeping data under Canadian jurisdiction and supporting sustainable growth.
BUZZ High Performance Computing (Buzz HPC), a subsidiary of Hive Digital Technologies, has entered into a partnership with Canadian operator Bell Canada with the aim of expanding sovereign AI infrastructure across the country, Bell said in a release.
Under the terms of the partnership, Buzz HPC will integrate its Nvidia-accelerated computing resources with Bell’s fiber network, data centers, and partner ecosystem under the Bell AI Fabric initiative. The main goal of the initiative is to provide Canadian government and enterprise clients with secure access to large-scale AI computing resources located entirely within Canada.
Buzz HPC will supply clusters of Nvidia Ampere, Hopper, and Blackwell GPUs, connected via Nvidia Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking. These systems will be linked with Bell’s national network and partner technologies, including Canadian AI firm Cohere. The combined infrastructure is intended to support a range of uses, from training new foundational AI models to refining existing ones, while ensuring data residency and compliance with national cybersecurity requirements, according to Bell.
The companies said the collaboration will extend across multiple provinces, beginning with a 5 MW deployment in Manitoba later this year, followed by expansion into additional Bell AI Fabric data centers. The phased rollout aims to create broad national coverage for advanced AI infrastructure within Canadian-owned facilities.
“Sovereign is the new standard for cloud computing, and this partnership with Bell marks the beginning of a new era for AI innovation in Canada, with Nvidia-accelerated infrastructure deployed domestically and a global footprint serving international customers, we are uniquely positioned to help Canada lead in AI while protecting its digital independence,” said Frank Holmes, executive chairman at Buzz HPC.
“Buzz HPC is one of the few Canadian cloud service providers with a purpose-built AI cloud that has experience operating GPU clusters at scale. We are excited to partner with Buzz HPC for its AI infrastructure solutions – an important layer in the Bell AI Fabric ecosystem delivering the advanced workloads our customers need in a sovereign, private and secure Canadian facility,” said John Watson, group president for business markets and AI at Bell.
In May, Bell Canada unveiled Bell AI Fabric, an investment that aims to create the country’s largest AI compute project. Bell AI Fabric will create a national network starting with a data center cluster in British Columbia that will aim to provide upwards of 500 MW of hydro-electric powered AI compute capacity across six facilities.
With this project, Bell said it will be in a position to support Canadian enterprises and governments across their full spectrum of AI needs, from strategy and applications development through infrastructure deployment.
Under this initiative, it was expected that the first of Bell’s AI Fabric facilities to come online in June in partnership with AI inference provider, Groq and the launch of their 7 MW AI inference facility in Kamloops, British Columbia. Additional AI facilities will come online by the end of 2026, including a 26 MW AI data center being built in partnership with Thompson Rivers University (TRU).
