Bell plans to more than double its national AI data-centre capacity via a significant expansion in Saskatchewan, under a non-binding new deal with the provincial government.

The telecom giant will add 900 megawatts of capacity in Saskatchewan over time. Bell isn’t announcing any new projects immediately but will instead launch work on new data centres once it’s signed deals with customers to use them. Bell claims the full buildout could be worth $50 billion across construction, power and the value of the compute hardware.

Montreal-headquartered Bell previously had a total target of 800 megawatts for its AI infrastructure business, dubbed AI Fabric. Today’s announcement takes that figure to 1.7 gigawatts.

Building data centres is one major pillar of the firm’s strategy to capitalize on Canada’s big AI push to develop and adopt AI; the other is lining up services and partners to help governments and businesses adopt it.

Bell CEO Mirko Bibic announced the deal with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in Toronto on Monday ahead of the Canada Investment Summit, at an event attended by Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

“The demand signals are so strong,” Bibic told The Logic, citing sales momentum for both AI Fabric and Bell’s broader AI-powered solutions business. 

The firm is already building a 300-megawatt facility in the municipality of Sherwood, near Regina, which it announced in March. Bell expects to spend $1.7 billion on the project, and has pre-sold the capacity to U.S. neoclouds Cerebras and CoreWeave. Bibic said Bell is likely to add most of the new capacity at its existing site, or nearby.

The Sherwood facility draws energy from the grid of provincial utility SaskPower. For future projects, the firm will contract with electricity producers to generate dedicated power from natural gas. Saskatchewan’s data centre framework, released last month, requires developers to bring their own power for any new developments. Neighbouring Alberta has popularized the model.

The Saskatchewan framework also promises to prioritize Canadian-owned projects from domestically headquartered firms, as well as developers that have experience in the data centre business. And it puts a premium on data sovereignty. Bell’s AI infrastructure sales pitch touts all those elements. 

New data centre proposals have drawn repeated protests and opposition at local and provincial town halls across Canada. That includes Bell’s Sherwood project. It’s fair for residents to question the data centre buildout, Moe told reporters on Monday. “But an equally fair question is: Where do we want our data to ultimately be stored as Canadian citizens and Canadian industries?’

Bell typically builds, connects, owns and operates its data centres, and offers cybersecurity and IT services. Tenants fill them with hardware, either for their own use or to sell the processing power via cloud services. Bell has also assembled an alliance of companies to jointly sell packages of so-called sovereign AI capabilities to the private and public sectors. In Saskatchewan, the firm will work with SaskTel to sell capacity at the Sherwood data centre to government agencies and businesses in the province. Moe said the tie-up will strengthen the provincial Crown corporation.

Bell executives have previously said the firm would be open to outside investors in its data centre strategy, like the deal it struck with the Public Sector Pension Investment Board last May to help pay for the expansion of its Ziply fibre network in the U.S. 

Bibic is among the business leaders attending the Canada Investment Summit on Tuesday. He’s been talking to investors about AI Fabric this week as part of broader conversations about the AI opportunity in Canada. “It may not be as direct tomorrow as, ‘Hey, I’m looking for funding partners,’” he said. “But it will be, ‘Look, we’ve got something interesting going on. We’d love to have a dialogue.’”  

As part of its agreement with the province, the firm will also set up a head office for AI Fabric in Saskatchewan. Division president Dan Rink is based in British Columbia, where the firm kicked off its AI data centre business in May 2025, when it announced plans for six facilities with a combined capacity of 500 megawatts. Bell’s president for AI Fabric operations Michel Richer is based in Montreal.

The firm initially focused on hydroelectricity for its data centre business, touting the lower emissions and lower costs. However, if it adds all the capacity it’s planning in Saskatchewan, its AI infrastructure business will be majority powered by natural gas. Bell is promising the new facilities will use closed-loop cooling systems and won’t draw from the local water table.

The firm’s combination of early energy deals “allowed us to scale faster than anyone else,” Bibic said. Still, with policymakers trying to build public trust in AI and manage resources and environmental concerns, “we have to now look at bringing our own power,” he said. That means natural gas. Bibic said Bell would try to contain emissions and ensure it is building its data centres efficiently.

The firm was one of more than 20 that recently signed on to non-binding principles on data centre development put forward by the federal government. The framework includes promising to create lasting local benefits, minimize resource use and disclose information about their projects.

Bell is still looking for data centre opportunities in other provinces, Bibic said. “We have the potential here to scale beyond this.”