Canada's Bold AI Move: Bell & Telus Bet Big on Sovereign Infrastructure
Download MP3Welcome to TechDaily.ai. Let's dive right into something, pretty significant happening up in Canada.
Speaker 2:Yeah. A really big push on infrastructure, for AI. We're talking major data centers.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So we've been looking into this, who's involved, what's being built, and, this whole idea of sovereign AI. Why now?
Speaker 2:Right. Our mission today is basically to unpack all of that for you, piece together what we know from what's happening on the ground.
Speaker 1:Okay. Let's start with the big player here. BCE, Canada's largest telecom. They're putting serious money down.
Speaker 2:Hundreds of millions. Yeah. And it's not just, you know, pipes and wires anymore. This is specifically for a network of AI data centers across the country.
Speaker 1:Across the country. Where exactly?
Speaker 2:Well, the plan is for six cities initially, and the first one is actually expected pretty soon, June, I think, in Kamloops, BC. So it's happening fast.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. And the tech side gets interesting too. Right? There's a partnership involved.
Speaker 2:A big one. With Grok, that US chip company known for, well, really fast AI processing.
Speaker 1:Grok. Right. The LPU people.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And Grok is going to be the exclusive inference partner for this new network. Bell's calling it the Bell AI Fabric.
Speaker 1:Bell AI Fabric. Okay. And what kind of scale are we talking about?
Speaker 2:When it's all built out, the projection is around 500 megawatts dedicated just to AI.
Speaker 1:500 megawatts. How does that stack up?
Speaker 2:Well, it's substantial for Canada, for sure. Yeah. Maybe not quite the, you know, multi gigawatt scale you see being planned elsewhere, like parts of The US or The Middle East. But for dedicated AI within Canada, it's a major commitment.
Speaker 1:And the focus on inference is key, you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Because inference actually running the train models, that's where latency really bites you.
Speaker 1:Right. Groke's CEO, Jonathan Ross, apparently made that point. Having the processing physically close makes a huge difference. Milliseconds count.
Speaker 2:Precisely. And that ties directly into this whole sovereign AI concept that's gaining traction globally.
Speaker 1:Okay. Let's unpack that. Sovereign AI. Why is this suddenly such a priority for countries like Canada?
Speaker 2:Well, it seems like a few things are hitting at once. First, just the raw demand for AI compute power is exploding. Everyone needs access.
Speaker 1:So capacity closer to home makes sense. What else?
Speaker 2:Then there's the desire for AI that's, well, less generic. Customized, you know? Trained on local data, understands Canadian nuances, languages, maybe culture.
Speaker 1:Ah, so AI that actually feels relevant locally.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But maybe the biggest driver, and Bell's CEO Mirko Bebek really stressed this, is geopolitical security.
Speaker 1:Security? How so?
Speaker 2:It's about making sure Canada controls its own essential AI capabilities. Yeah. Operated by Canadians, managed by Canadians, so you're not vulnerable if, say, international tensions rise or supply chains get disrupted. Control over the tech.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, especially when you think about Canada's history with AI research. Right. The pioneers, Hinton, Bengio.
Speaker 2:Right. It's almost a classic story, isn't it? I think it kinda touched on this too. Canada leads in fundamental research. Breakthroughs happen here.
Speaker 1:But then sometimes struggles to scale it up commercially at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That seems to be the pattern sometimes. So maybe this infrastructure push is partly about changing that.
Speaker 1:And it's not just Bell, is it? I think Telus is also involved.
Speaker 2:That's right. Telus, another huge Canadian telecom, is also earmarking serious investment billions over the next five years, partly for what they're calling sovereign AI factories.
Speaker 1:Sovereign AI factories. Okay. So you've got two giants building out domestic AI processing power.
Speaker 2:Focused on keeping it within Canada, especially for that latency sensitive inference part. And with Grok involved, they already have millions of developers using their platform. Once Camelix is live, Canada just becomes another processing option, a local one.
Speaker 1:It really shows how strategic this is becoming for nations, owning your AI infrastructure. But are there downsides? Challenges?
Speaker 2:Well, sure. Building this stuff isn't cheap. It could potentially cost more than just using the massive global cloud providers.
Speaker 1:And can domestic scale really keep up with the R and D budgets of, you know, the global tech giants long term? That's a question.
Speaker 2:It's a valid point. It takes immense resources and expertise.
Speaker 1:And speaking of resources, think about all the data these AI centers will be crunching and storing. That data needs to be safe and accessible.
Speaker 2:Absolutely critical. You can't build the future of AI on shaky storage foundations. Reliability, security, paramount.
Speaker 1:Which brings us to our sponsor, Stonefly. They specialize in exactly this kind of thing, enterprise storage solutions.
Speaker 2:Right, things like high performance NAS and SAN systems really built for data integrity and handling the massive data sets AI throws around.
Speaker 1:They offer solutions designed for these modern data challenges, whether you need unified storage or specific NAS setups for AI workloads. Very relevant here.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Secure, reliable storage is non negotiable.
Speaker 1:So wrapping this up a bit, what does this Canadian AI infrastructure push mean for, you know, the average user in Canada?
Speaker 2:Potentially, it could mean faster AI services. If the processing is happening locally, the apps you use, the services you interact with, they might just feel snappier, more responsive.
Speaker 1:And maybe more relevant too if that local customization aspect plays out.
Speaker 2:It's certainly a step towards building a more self reliant AI ecosystem within Canada?
Speaker 1:Okay. So here's something to think about. We talked about Canada's history, amazing research, but sometimes lagging and scaling things up commercially. Will these big bets like Bell AI Fabric and Telus' Sovereign AI factories actually be the thing that helps Canada build and control its own major AI innovations this time? And really compete globally on infrastructure.
Speaker 1:What does that mean for what gets developed here?
Speaker 2:That's the multi billion dollar question, isn't it? And securing the data behind whatever the answer is will be key.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And on that note of secure storage for these massive AI tasks, it's worth mentioning, Stonefly has specific offers like a 100TB immutable and air gapped SSO NAS solution currently available for $8,995 shows the kind of focused security solutions needed today.
