ai announcement promises 'significant' jobs, economic growth to b.c.
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telus ceo daren entwistle.
lori culbert
the federal government announced monday a large artificial intelligence infrastructure project will be built in b.c. to support this country “in the global ai economy” — as canada pushes to unhinge itself from the united states.
“what does digital sovereignty look like?” evan solomon, federal minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, asked a crowd at the telus headquarters in vancouver on monday. “it looks like canadian companies building things that will function under canadian law, free from the coercion of others … at a time when the political realignment is happening as fast as the technological acceleration.”
this project is predicted to deliver $9 billion in economic value to b.c., and create more than 1,000 construction jobs and 525 permanent jobs in three new data centres.
telus ceo darren entwistle said the project entails expanding its existing facility in kamloops to create an “ai factory” as well as building two new centres in vancouver. a data centre named m3 is scheduled to open in mount pleasant this year and expand over the next two years, and a location on west georgia is anticipated to open in 2029.
“these ai factories are the first projects … to advance under the federal government’s initiative of enabling large scale, sovereign ai data centres,” said entwistle said.
the centres are projected to scale b.c.’s infrastructure by more than 60,000 gpus, or graphics processing units, which are used to train ai models. this can serve private and public organizations that use ai, ending a need to send their data and intellectual property outside the country.
solomon said it is important for canada’s data to remain under canadian jurisdiction, pointing to the tragedy in tumbler ridge in which nine people, mostly children, were killed. the shooter, a teenager, had posted violence-related posts on chatgpt, an american ai company, which did not warn police.
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“canadians expect us to safeguard their privacy, online safety, and protect democratic trust in the digital age, and you know this more than anything in b.c., after the horrific tragedy at tumbler ridge,” solomon said.
federal ai minister evan solomon, left, speaks with telus ceo darren entwistle during an ai announcement at the telus headquarters in vancouver on may 11, 2026.
lori culbert
ai has come under fire for additional reasons, including privacy and intellectual property rights.
but b.c. jobs minister ravi kahlon said he still supports the expansion of this technology. “we need as a country to take care of ourselves. … and all of this takes data, and it takes a lot of it.”
kahlon added that government must safeguard against creating more vulnerabilities for youth and others who use ai. he pledged to speak with solomon about “the regulations that they need to put in place so we can avoid a tumbler ridge situation.”
if the province doesn’t believe ottawa goes far enough in future ai-protection regulations, then b.c. is prepared to pursue its own legislation, kahlon told postmedia on monday.
ottawa has long promised, but delayed, the release of a national ai strategy. when asked about this monday, solomon said government has announced six pillars for the strategy, including safeguarding canadians and building global alliances, but is taking the time needed to get the policy “right.”
it has been documented that large ai facilities are harmful to the environment, for reasons that include increased electricity demand, air pollution, and massive water consumption for cooling.
officials at monday’s announcement argued b.c.’s new ai infrastructure would be built “responsibly and sustainably.”
compared to traditional data centres, entwistle said, the b.c. facilities would use a cooling system estimated to reduce cooling energy consumption by 80 per cent, and 90 per cent less water consumption.
“we are also discussing how we can leverage the rainwater collected by the roof of b.c. place stadium to further reduce water consumption of the downtown vancouver ai data centre to as close as possible to zero,” entwistle said.
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and he promised a new technology would harness the heat generated by the centres, and recycle it back into electrical grid. he predicted that could be used to heat more than 150,000 homes in metro vancouver.
as water-restrictions are now in place in metro vancouver after a drier-than-usual winter, kahlon acknowledged british columbians may be concerned about the centres but insisted they are designed to have low environmental impact.
“we have to find a balance between ensuring that we have the compute power, because we need it for the defence of our country, but also wanting to make sure that it’s as sustained as possible,” kahlon said.
bridgitte anderson, vancouver board of trade ceo, predicted the centres would lure business investment and more skilled workers to bolster the 125,000 tech workers and cluster of startup companies already in the city.
“it means that b.c. businesses, regardless of their size, can develop, adopt and scale advanced technologies while keeping their data, intellectual property and talent here at home,” anderson said.
vancouver mayor ken sim suggested the trickle-down jobs that will emerge as a result of the ai expansion will be much larger than the 525 roles in the data centres.
“we are talking about the future of every single industry in this city, in this province, in this country,” sim said. “we’re super excited.”
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