MONTREAL — Bell Canada (TSX:BCE) and U.S. technology company Cisco have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on sovereign AI infrastructure for Canadian customers, using Cisco’s AI, networking, security and infrastructure technologies.
Sovereign AI collaboration
The companies said the partnership aims to help Canadian organizations deploy, secure and manage AI infrastructure within Canada and to give customers greater flexibility in how they access and scale sovereign AI capacity.
Technology and scope
Under the MoU, Bell and Cisco will make use of Cisco’s AI, networking, security and infrastructure technologies as part of the collaboration to deliver the sovereign AI offering to Canadian customers.
Bell’s recent AI moves
The announcement follows other moves by Bell in AI and infrastructure: in June the company signed a deal with Cohere for the AI firm to operate its large language models through Bell AI Fabric, with support from two other companies. Earlier this month, Bell said it intends to quadruple the size of its planned data centre project in Saskatchewan, an expansion expected to boost the facility’s capacity to 1.2 gigawatts.
First published Sept. 29, 2026.
