Telus has announced it is partnering with Nvidia to build an ‘AI Factory’ in Quebec, Canada.

According to the Canadian telco, it is the first North American service provider to become an official Nvidia cloud partner.

Telus will deploy the chipmaker’s Hopper and Blackwell GPUs at its data center in Quebec by summer 2025, making it one of the first to have access to the next-generation chips in Canada. The deployment will allow Canadian businesses to develop “local solutions to local challenges,” Telus said in a statement, adding that the facility would enable Canadians to “build, train, scale and deploy AI in a secure environment compliant with Canada’s security standards and privacy regulations.”

The company also plans to expand its facility in British Columbia but has not provided a timeline for that project.

The site in Quebec will be supported by the telco’s PureFibre network and powered by 99 percent renewable energy sources. Both facilities will also use “natural cooling,” which Telus said would cut water consumption by 75 percent, when compared to “traditional data centers,” making them some of the “most sustainable AI-ready data centers in the world.”

“Canada has made AI a national priority, investing in talent, research, and commercialization. The Telus sovereign AI Factory now provides the infrastructure for this innovation to scale, empowering Canadian businesses, startups, and researchers with access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure to turn their bold ideas into real-world breakthroughs — and now, they don’t have to look beyond our borders to get it,” said Hesham Fahmy, CIO, Telus.

“Collaborating with Nvidia gives us the advanced computing capabilities needed to drive Canadian AI innovation while strengthening Canadian digital independence,” he added.