TELUS developing three-site AI cluster in B.C.

Key Takeaways:

• TELUS is expanding its national sovereign AI network with a three-site cluster in British Columbia that is projected to scale to over 150 megawatts by 2032.
• The project includes a significant expansion of an existing Kamloops facility and the construction of two new sustainable data centres in downtown Vancouver.
• Confirmed partners include Westbank for development, Creative Energy for waste heat recovery, and NVIDIA and HPE for high-performance computing hardware.

The Whole Story:

TELUS announced a significant expansion of its sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure, with plans to develop a three-facility cluster in British Columbia. The project is part of a collaboration with the Government of Canada under the federal Enabling Large-Scale Sovereign AI Data Centres initiative, a program designed to establish high-performance computing capacity within national borders. The B.C. cluster is expected to scale to more than 60,000 GPUs and 150 megawatts of power capacity by 2032, contributing an estimated $9 billion to the provincial economy.

The expansion follows the total sell-out of the company’s first AI Factory in Rimouski, Que., which opened in September 2025. The B.C. development involves the expansion of an existing data centre in Kamloops and the construction of two new facilities in Vancouver in partnership with developer Westbank. The Kamloops site is scheduled to come online later this year, while the Vancouver M3 facility in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood is expected to open at the end of 2026. A third location at 150 West Georgia is slated to begin operations in 2029.

The facilities are designed to meet high sustainability standards, utilizing 98% renewable energy secured through BC Hydro. A closed-loop liquid cooling system is expected to reduce cooling energy consumption by 80% and water usage by 90% compared to traditional data centres.

In a notable infrastructure integration, the Vancouver facilities will capture and recycle waste heat into the city’s district energy systems. This thermal energy is projected to support the decarbonization of approximately 4.6 million square metres (50 million square feet) of real estate and provide heat for the equivalent of 150,000 homes in the metro region.

At full scale, the cluster will house NVIDIA high-performance computing platforms, including the Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell architectures. As a certified NVIDIA Cloud Partner, the telecommunications company will provide Canadian researchers, startups, and public institutions with localized access to large-scale AI model training and complex simulations. The project is expected to create more than 1,000 construction jobs and several hundred highly skilled operational roles, positioning Vancouver as a strategic digital gateway for Asia-Pacific markets.

“The unprecedented demand that completely sold out our first AI Factory in Rimouski proves that Canadian innovators want cutting-edge AI built right here on Canadian soil,” said Darren Entwistle, president and CEO of TELUS. “By scaling our infrastructure to more than 60,000 high-performance GPUs, we are doing more than just building technology; we are injecting $9 billion into the Canadian economy and safeguarding our nation’s most sensitive data.”

The development involves a multi-sector collaboration between telecommunications, energy, and specialized construction firms. Westbank serves as the primary development partner for the Vancouver facilities, while Creative Energy is responsible for the district energy infrastructure that captures and redirects server waste heat. The architectural design for the 150 West Georgia project is being led by Align Architecture, following a pivot from the site’s original office tower concept to a mixed-use data centre and hotel podium. Technical infrastructure is being delivered through a partnership with NVIDIA and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), with Netris providing the networking software for secure, multi-tenant isolation. The Kamloops expansion is located on the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) campus, which is partnering on the facility to support local research and sustainability goals. Additionally, OpenText and Accenture are working with the project team to integrate sovereign cloud software and industry-specific AI applications into the new cluster.