Bell and Cisco Collaborate on Sovereign AI Infrastructure for Canada

Companies sign MOU to collaborate on a sovereign AI infrastructure offering combining Bell data centres and networks with Cisco's AI, security, observability, infrastructure monitoring and management, and Sovereign Critical Infrastructure technologies

Bell Canada (NYSE: BCE) (TSX: BCE) (NYSE: BCE) and Cisco announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on a sovereign AI infrastructure offering for Canada, bringing together Bell's data centre, network and operations capabilities with Cisco's AI, security, observability, infrastructure monitoring and management, and Sovereign Critical Infrastructure technologies.

Together, the companies will work on a practical approach intended to help Canadian organizations deploy, secure and manage AI infrastructure in Canada, while giving customers more flexibility in how they access and scale sovereign AI capacity.

As more organizations deploy AI at scale, the need for infrastructure that can support sensitive workloads, meet strict security requirements and operate close to home is growing. Through this collaboration, Bell and Cisco will aim to address the needs of customers in government, regulated industries and other sectors where trust, control and resilience are critical.

Helping organizations run AI securely in Canada

Bell and Cisco will focus on solution architectures that can support different AI workloads, including training and inference, while giving customers more choice and control over where critical systems and data are located, secured and managed.

The collaboration will focus on three core areas:

• Building a Canadian platform for sovereign AI: Bell and Cisco will work to bring together Bell's Canadian data centre space, power, cooling, physical security, connectivity and operations services with Cisco AI infrastructure, security, observability, management and Sovereign Critical Infrastructure portfolio of technologies.
• Supporting modular AI infrastructure deployments: Bell and Cisco will assess how Cisco AI PODs architectures, which provide modular building blocks for different AI workloads, and relevant capabilities from Cisco's Sovereign Critical Infrastructure portfolio can be combined with Canadian infrastructure, connectivity and operations services.
• Developing flexible commercial models: Bell and Cisco will assess flexible consumption models, so customers can better align costs with how they use or reserve AI infrastructure.

Advancing trusted AI infrastructure in Canada

The collaboration builds on Bell's work through Bell AI Fabric and Cisco's sovereign AI infrastructure advancements to help expand the capabilities needed for trusted AI adoption in Canada for customers that need greater control over critical digital environments. Together, Bell and Cisco will focus on making sovereign AI infrastructure more practical for Canadian organizations to deploy, operate and scale.

Quotes

"Bell is focused on helping turn sovereign AI from ambition into infrastructure Canadian organizations can use. That requires secure Canadian data centre capacity, high-performance connectivity, operational expertise and trusted technology working together. Through this collaboration with Cisco, we will work to make it easier to deploy and scale sovereign AI infrastructure for customers that need greater control, resilience and confidence in the systems behind their most critical workloads."
- John Watson, Group President, Business Markets, Bell Cyber, AI Fabric and Ateko

"Cisco's Sovereign Critical Infrastructure portfolio is designed to give customers more choice in how they build, secure and manage the digital environments that support critical operations. By working with Bell, we can bring those capabilities together with Canadian data centre capacity, connectivity and operations to support sovereign AI infrastructure that is configurable, secure and easier for organizations to deploy with confidence."
- Raj Juneja, President, Cisco Canada