TELUS’ Clean Energy & Water-Reduced AI Data Centre in Canada

A new cluster of AI data centres in British Columbia (B.C.) could reshape Canada's approach to environmental responsibility in digital infrastructure.

TELUS is building facilities that combine computing power with renewable energy and waste heat recovery systems.

The telco is working with the Government of Canada and property developer Westbank to establish three sites that will run on clean power and redirect thermal output to heat residential areas.

According to TELUS, the project forms part of the federal Enabling Large-Scale Sovereign AI Data Centres initiative.

Clean energy powers compute expansion

The facilities will eventually scale beyond 150MW of capacity and support more than 60,000 NVIDIA GPUs across sites in Kamloops and Vancouver.

All computing infrastructure will remain within Canadian borders to support businesses, researchers and public institutions without moving sensitive data outside the country.

Darren Entwistle, President and CEO of TELUS, says: "We are incredibly proud to be working with the Government of Canada to help build Canada's sovereign AI infrastructure."

The project will run on 98% clean energy, according to Darren. The remaining waste heat will be used for heating 150,000 homes in Vancouver.

"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," says Darren.

"Following this modular, demand-driven approach, we are developing our B.C. sovereign AI cluster as a direct response to that market demand," says Darren.

"This will serve a rapidly growing ecosystem of Canadian businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, researchers, public institutions and government organisations that require world-class AI compute without sending their data, intellectual property and competitive advantage outside Canadian borders," says Darren.

The expansion follows the opening of TELUS' first Sovereign AI Factory in Rimouski, Quebec, in September 2025.

TELUS describes the facility as Canada's fastest and most powerful supercomputer on the TOP500 global ranking, which lists the 500 most powerful commercially available supercomputers known to researchers.

Capacity at the site is fully sold out, according to the company.

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TELUS is now scaling infrastructure in British Columbia using an initial 85MW of renewable power secured through BC Hydro.

Infrastructure timeline and technical specifications

The Kamloops AI Factory is scheduled to come online later this year.

The M3 facility in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant district opens at the end of 2026 and expands through 2028.

A third site at 150 West Georgia follows in 2029.

At full scale, the sites support large-scale AI model training, simulations and production deployment workloads using NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms.

Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, says: "Securing Canada's technological independence is a national priority and it requires building the infrastructure to back it up."

"By working with TELUS, we are taking concrete action to strengthen Canada's sovereign AI capacity and ensure that Canadian innovation, data and economic advantages are anchored in Canada. This is how Canada competes in the AI-driven economy," says Evan.

TELUS positions the project around sovereign infrastructure principles, with systems owned and operated entirely within Canada.

The platform supports the full AI lifecycle, from training and fine-tuning through to inference and deployment.

As part of the rollout and as the first North American service provider to gain official NVIDIA Cloud Partner status, TELUS plans to deploy NVIDIA Vera Rubin and NVIDIA Grace Blackwell systems.

These will be connected through NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand and NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking.

District heating integration reduces emissions

The Vancouver facilities are designed to connect to district energy systems, including the City of Vancouver's Neighbourhood Energy Utility and Creative Energy's downtown network.

According to TELUS, the infrastructure supports the decarbonisation of more than 464 million square meters of real estate.

Ronnie Vasishta, Senior Vice President, Telecom, at NVIDIA, says: "TELUS has proven over the past year that sovereign AI infrastructure built on trusted telecom platforms delivers real results; in fact, AI-native companies are already training, deploying and scaling on TELUS' NVIDIA-powered platform."

"This next phase of growth validates how trusted telcos like TELUS become the infrastructure layer of a nation's economic future," says Ronnie.

The company claims its closed-loop liquid cooling system cuts cooling energy consumption by 80% compared with conventional data centres while reducing water use by 90%.

The design channels thermal output from computing operations directly into urban heating networks.

The wider economic impact also forms part of the programme, according to TELUS.

The cluster will create more than 1,000 construction jobs, along with operational roles tied to AI infrastructure management.

Darren adds that the project will bring US$9bn (approximately C$12.6bn) into the Canadian economy.

The facilities also strengthen Vancouver's role as a connectivity hub linking North America with Asia-Pacific markets through low-latency network routes.