Telus chief Darren Entwistle says the telco’s AI enabling capabilities delivered strong double-digit revenue growth of 22% in Q1 2026
In sum – what to know:
B.C. expansion – Telus plans three sovereign AI data center facilities in British Columbia, adding to its sold-out Rimouski AI Factory in Quebec.
AI capacity – The planned cluster is expected to scale beyond 60,000 GPUs and 150 MW of AI compute infrastructure by 2032.
Sovereign focus – The project is tied to Canada’s push for domestically controlled AI infrastructure, data governance and high-performance compute capacity.
Canadian operator Telus has announced its intention to expand its sovereign AI infrastructure plans in Canada through a proposed cluster of AI data centers in British Columbia, following strong demand for its first sovereign AI facility in Rimouski, Quebec.
The Canadian operator said it is working with the Government of Canada under the federal Enabling Large-Scale Sovereign AI Data Centers initiative, which aims to support domestic high-performance AI compute infrastructure.
Telus said its first sovereign AI Factory in Rimouski, which opened in September 2025, is fully sold out. The company is now planning three additional AI-focused facilities in British Columbia, including an expansion of its Kamloops data center and two new sites in Vancouver developed with Westbank and partners.
The planned infrastructure cluster is expected to scale to more than 60,000 GPUs and 150 megawatts of capacity by 2032.
According to Telus, the Kamloops facility is scheduled to come online later this year, while the M3 site in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant district is expected to open at the end of 2026 and expand through 2028. A third facility in Vancouver is planned for 2029.
The company said the facilities will use high-performance Nvidia GPUs and networking technologies to support AI model training, inference, and large-scale deployment workloads. Telus also said that it became the first North American service provider to join the Nvidia cloud partner program.
Telus also said the planned facilities will run primarily on renewable energy sourced through BC Hydro. The company also outlined plans for liquid cooling and heat recovery systems intended to reduce cooling-related energy consumption and integrate with district heating infrastructure in Vancouver.
Telus said its sovereign AI platform is intended to support the full AI development cycle, including model training, fine-tuning, deployment and inference, on infrastructure operated within Canada.
“This new compute capacity will serve the growing ecosystem of businesses, researchers, start-ups, and government organizations seeking to innovate rapidly and leverage AI capabilities for training models or inference applications,” said Darren Entwistle, president and chief executive officer at Telus, speaking on a conference call with investors.
“Altogether, our AI enabling capabilities delivered strong double-digit revenue growth of 22% in the first quarter of 2026. This result demonstrates the continued momentum of our AI-driven strategy as we progress towards our revenue target of circa CAD2 billion ($1.46 billion) in 2028 across Telus Digital and Telus Business Solutions, including contributions from our sovereign AI factories,” the executive added.
