A new data centre is set to open in Merritt, B.C., in the coming weeks as part of Bell Canada’s expanding AI-infrastructure network.

Bell Canada said the facility, developed in partnership with Buzz High Performance Computing, will form part of its Bell AI Fabric supercluster and provide high-performance computing capacity for Canadian organizations.

Buzz has secured an initial 6.5 megawatts of gross capacity at the Merritt site, with the option to access additional power over time. The company plans to scale next-generation GPU clusters at the facility for commercial use, supporting both AI training and inference workloads.

The Merritt data centre has been engineered to handle intensive AI demands using high-density, liquid-cooled infrastructure and accelerated GPU computing systems, along with design and scaling capabilities for complex deployments, said Bell.

The partnership combines Buzz’s GPU-accelerated computing expertise with Bell AI Fabric’s broader platform, which includes fibre network connectivity, data centre infrastructure, cloud capabilities and integration services, aimed at delivering a sovereign, made-in-Canada AI solution.

“We are excited to deliver cutting-edge AI infrastructure and deployment expertise to our customers through our partnership with Buzz HPC at our Merritt facility.

“This partnership provides another important layer to the Bell AI Fabric ecosystem, delivering the advanced workloads our customers need in a sovereign, private and secure Canadian facility,” said John Watson, group president of business markets, AI and Ateko at Bell.

“Partnerships like these are instrumental to BCE Inc. delivering on our ambition to grow our revenue from AI-powered solutions to $2 billion by 2028.”

Ateko is Bell’s tech-services division.

“Buzz HPC is expanding its AI infrastructure with Bell AI Fabric across two Canadian provinces (B.C. and Manitoba), including new capacity in British Columbia to scale near-term deployments,” said Craig Tavares, president and CEO at Buzz. “This marks a major step in Buzz’s journey to become a leading national sovereign-AI platform, scaling our reach to serve both Canadian innovators and international customers.

The announcement builds on a previously disclosed partnership between Bell and Buzz to deploy high-performance GPU clusters within Bell AI Fabric’s sovereign data-centre facilities.

Buzz provides enterprise-grade cloud services and large-scale GPU infrastructure for AI, machine learning and scientific applications. Its platform includes managed services such as Kubernetes, virtual machines and bare-metal deployments, operating energy-efficient, renewable-powered data centres across North America and Europe.

Pictured: Buzz data centre in New Brunswick.

Photo: Buzz HPC