Bell Canada To Open Six A.I. Data Centres In B.C.

Bell Canada, which is owned by BCE (BCE), plans to open six artificial intelligence (A.I.) data centres in British Columbia as it moves to create the largest A.I. compute project in the country.The Montreal-based telecommunications firm said the data centres will provide around 500 megawatts of hydroelectric-power.That power, known as “A.I. compute,” enables artificial intelligence systems to perform tasks such as processing data and training machine-learning models.The project, called “Bell AI Fabric,” will support Canadian businesses and governments’ A.I. needs, including infrastructure deployment, said the company in a news release.Bell’s first A.I. data centre is scheduled to open next month (June) in Kamloops, B.C. A second facility is planned to open in Merritt, B.C., by the end of 2025.Most of the company’s planned A.I. data centres should be operational in B.C. by the end of 2027. Bell has not said how much it is investing in the data centres. However, the company has previously said that it has a goal to build a $1-billion technology services business.The B.C. data centres are being developed in partnership with American A.I. inference provider Groq, whose technology accelerates A.I. inference tasks, notably for large language models.BCE’s stock has declined nearly 50% in the last five years, including a 36% drop over the past 12 months. The shares currently trade at $29.27 each.