Canadian telecom giant Bell Canada has confirmed plans to build a 300MW data center campus in Saskatchewan, securing AI cloud firms CoreWeave and Cerebras Systems as anchor customers for the project.

The development will rise outside Regina in the Rural Municipality of Sherwood and represents one of the most ambitious compute infrastructure projects announced in Canada this year. According to the company, the entire campus has already been fully pre-leased to the two AI cloud providers, signaling strong early demand for sovereign AI compute capacity in the country.

Construction will begin in spring, with the facility entering service in stages. Bell expects the first data halls to come online in the first half of 2027, while the entire campus should reach full capacity by the end of the same year.

The project positions Saskatchewan as a new node in Canada’s growing AI infrastructure landscape, a sector traditionally concentrated around major urban hubs.

Strategic Infrastructure To Expand Canada’s Compute Capacity

Bell says the development will significantly expand domestic compute resources while strengthening the province’s economic diversification strategy.

“Bell is drawing on its historic roots as a Canadian technology leader and nation builder through ambitious projects like Bell AI Fabric, by building a digital backbone to power the future of the Canadian economy,” said Mirko Bibic, president & CEO, BCE and Bell Canada. “Today’s announcement is an exciting illustration of the impact of Bell’s strategic priority to lead in enterprise with AI-powered solutions. Our largest-ever investment in Saskatchewan will deliver the cutting-edge, high-performance compute necessary to innovate at speed, bring major economic benefits to the province, and create a competitive advantage for our country.”

Bell will construct the campus on a 160-acre greenfield site along Park Street Road in Sherwood. The location sits close to an existing SaskPower substation, ensuring direct access to power infrastructure.

Furthermore, the site will connect to Bell’s national fiber network through collaboration with SaskTel, enabling high-bandwidth connectivity across the company’s Canadian backbone.

Bell’s Broader Push Into AI Infrastructure

The Saskatchewan project forms part of Bell’s wider AI infrastructure strategy, which aims to build a nationwide compute platform capable of supporting large-scale AI workloads. Last year, Bell announced plans to develop six AI data centers in British Columbia powered by approximately 500MW of hydroelectric capacity. The roadmap includes a 7MW facility in Kamloops built with chip startup Groq, along with two additional 26MW facilities in the same region.

Another 7MW site will be developed in Merritt. Meanwhile, Bell is working with Hive’s AI cloud division Buzz to deploy a 5MW Nvidia GPU cluster in Manitoba and has also partnered with Queen’s University in Ontario on an additional AI computing initiative.

However, the telecom operator’s return to large-scale data center construction marks a notable strategic pivot. In 2020, Bell sold a portfolio of Canadian data centers to Equinix, keeping only a limited number of networking facilities. The company now operates edge infrastructure in the United States following its acquisition of Ziply Fiber.

AI Cloud Providers Secure New Canadian Compute Capacity

For CoreWeave and Cerebras, the Saskatchewan campus represents a major expansion of AI infrastructure in Canada.

CoreWeave currently operates 43 data centers globally with roughly 850MW of active power capacity, according to its latest quarterly disclosures, and plans to scale toward 5GW by 2030. The company previously announced plans for a Canadian presence in partnership with Cohere, although details remained limited.

“Canada has an extraordinary AI ecosystem, and expanding access to advanced compute will help unlock new opportunities for innovation, economic growth and scientific discovery. We’re excited to work with Bell AI Fabric to deliver the high-performance AI infrastructure researchers, enterprises, and developers need to innovate at scale,” said Sachin Jain.

Cerebras, known for developing wafer-scale processors integrated into proprietary AI systems, continues to scale its inference infrastructure globally.

“AI is becoming a foundational national infrastructure. Countries want AI systems that are fast, energy-efficient, and sovereign by design, and partnering with Bell allows us to bring industry-leading AI compute to Canada in a way that aligns with these national priorities,” said Andrew Feldman.

Saskatchewan Emerges As A New Data Center Frontier

Canada’s data center market remains concentrated in major metropolitan regions such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, while developers increasingly explore expansion opportunities in Alberta.Saskatchewan has historically hosted only a small cluster of facilities operated by SaskTel and a few local providers in Regina and Saskatoon. Nevertheless, momentum is building. Developers have recently proposed two additional hyperscale-scale projects in Moose Jaw and Saskatoon.

The Bell campus therefore signals an important shift: AI infrastructure investment is beginning to move beyond traditional metropolitan hubs toward regions with available land, power access, and long-term infrastructure potential.

For Canada’s AI ambitions, the Saskatchewan development underscores a broader strategic reality, compute capacity is becoming national infrastructure.