Under the terms of the agreement, Cohere will offer its enterprise-grade AI capabilities through the Bell AI Fabric
In sum – what you need to know:
Sovereign AI stack for Canada – Bell and Cohere will offer a full-stack AI platform that ensures data residency, privacy, and compliance for Canadian governments and businesses.
Agentic AI for public and private use – Cohere’s North platform will power secure, automation-ready AI agents across Bell’s internal operations and customer deployments, without requiring clients to manage AI infrastructure.
Bell AI Fabric gains momentum – The partnership strengthens Bell’s AI Fabric by integrating Cohere’s models, sovereign data centers, and Ateko-led services, enabling turnkey AI solutions tailored to Canadian needs.
Bell Canada and Cohere, a Toronto-based enterprise AI company, have announced a strategic partnership to provide sovereign, end-to-end AI services for government and business clients across Canada.
In a release, the partners noted that the collaboration also includes deploying Cohere’s agentic AI platform North within Bell’s operations.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cohere will offer its enterprise-grade AI capabilities through the Bell AI Fabric, giving Canadian customers access to customized, advanced large language models (LLMs) and applications that meet sovereignty and security standards.
The agreement also stipulates that the Canadian operatol will become Cohere’s preferred infrastructure provider in Canada, while Cohere becomes Bell’s preferred domestic provider of large language models and agentic AI software.
The Bell AI Fabric includes four key layers:
-Hardware infrastructure: Canada’s largest sovereign AI data centers built on Bell’s national fiber network.
-Software infrastructure: Includes Cohere’s LLMs customized for Bell and a suite of cloud and machine learning tools.
-Advisory services: Delivered by Ateko, Bell’s enterprise tech brand focused on cloud, automation, and workforce transformation.
-Application layer: Business and consumer-facing AI tools, including Cohere’s North platform.
The partners explained that all layers are designed with strong cybersecurity protocols encompassing physical, network, and operational safeguards to maintain privacy and data residency in Canada.
Mirko Bibic, president and CEO at Bell Canada, said: “At a critical time for Canada, we’re proud to partner with Cohere to create a sovereign, full-stack AI solution, custom-built to support Canadian government and business. Working together, we will both transform Canadian businesses through cutting edge AI capabilities, while ensuring that the data remains secure and within Canada.”
“Our partnership with Bell Canada will provide the Canadian government and enterprises with world-class options for sovereign, security-first AI. This has the potential to be truly transformative for organizations looking to massively increase their productivity and efficiency without any compromise on data security and privacy,” said Aidan Gomez, co-founder and CEO at Cohere
Cohere’s North platform will also be integrated into Bell’s internal systems, allowing Bell employees to develop and manage AI agents using proprietary Bell data. This internal use will also help enhance Bell’s ability to provide managed and professional AI services to its customers.
In May, Bell Canada unveiled Bell AI Fabric, an investment that aims to create the country’s largest artificial intelligence (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 aims to 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 last month 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).
