Bell Canada and Cisco have signed a new agreement to collaborate on sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure for Canadian organizations, adding another major development to Canada’s rapidly expanding AI technology sector.

Under the memorandum of understanding announced September 29, the companies will combine Cisco’s AI, networking, security and infrastructure technologies with Bell’s Canadian telecommunications and AI capabilities. The partnership is intended to help organizations deploy, secure and manage AI infrastructure within Canada.

The companies say the initiative will give Canadian customers greater flexibility in accessing and scaling sovereign AI capacity, an increasingly important issue as organizations seek greater control over where their data and AI workloads are hosted.

The agreement follows Bell’s recent expansion of its AI strategy, including plans to significantly increase the capacity of its planned Saskatchewan data-centre project.

The new partnership highlights the growing focus on Canadian AI infrastructure, data security, cloud technology and domestic computing capacity as businesses and institutions increase their use of artificial intelligence.