Bell Canada has broken ground on a new artificial‑intelligence data centre at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, slated for completion in late 2027.[1] The facility will house high‑performance compute clusters designed to train and run large language models and other AI workloads.

The project matters because it adds sovereign, Canadian‑controlled AI compute power at a time when foreign‑owned cloud services dominate the market. Bell said the centre will help domestic firms and research groups develop AI without relying on overseas providers, supporting economic independence and data‑privacy goals.

Construction began in 2024[1] and is expected to finish by the end of 2027.[1] The timeline aligns with Bell’s broader rollout of AI‑optimised sites across the province, a strategy intended to keep pace with rapid AI adoption in industry and academia.

The Kamloops centre is located at 1452 McGill Rd., on the Thompson Rivers University campus.[2] The address places the facility near existing fiber routes and renewable‑energy sources, which Bell plans to leverage for lower emissions.

Bell’s plan calls for a total of six AI data centres in British Columbia.[1] Those sites will share a common architecture that maximises energy efficiency and uses locally sourced electricity, a move the company said was both sustainable and sovereign. The network will give Canadian AI developers a reliable, low‑latency backbone for training models.

Industry observers said that the Kamloops hub, as the first of Bell’s sovereign‑focus centres, could set a template for future Canadian data‑centre projects. By tying compute capacity to regional power grids and university research programs, the initiative may spur local talent pipelines and reduce reliance on imported AI services.

**What this means** The Kamloops data centre represents a concrete step toward building a Canadian‑controlled AI infrastructure. If Bell’s six‑site plan proceeds on schedule, the country could gain a domestic alternative to the dominant U.S.-based cloud providers, potentially reshaping how Canadian businesses and researchers access high‑power AI tools.

“Bell’s AI hub will be the province’s first data centre built with a sovereign computing focus.”

The Kamloops data centre represents a concrete step toward building a Canadian‑controlled AI infrastructure. If Bell’s six‑site plan proceeds on schedule, the country could gain a domestic alternative to the dominant U.S.-based cloud providers, potentially reshaping how Canadian businesses and researchers access high‑power AI tools.