![\"sovereign](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ca7f9b1eccc19fcdb147cb6d55ced199.png\")
sovereign AI stocks in canada <\/p>\n sovereign AI stocks in canada <\/p>\n
Written by Iain Butler and Nick Sciple<\/a> at The Motley Fool Canada<\/p>\n Canada is making a massive push to build its own AI infrastructure \u2014 and investors will probably want to take notice.<\/p>\n In this five-minute video, Motley Fool Canada CIO Iain Butler breaks down the federal government\u2019s $9 billion AI data centre cluster in British Columbia and shares three Canadian companies he\u2019s watching to capitalize on this sovereign AI theme: Celestica (TSX: CLS<\/a>), Telus (TSX: T<\/a>), and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (TSX: BIP.UN<\/a>).<\/p>\n Prefer to read? There\u2019s a transcript below.<\/p>\n Nick Sciple: I\u2019m Motley Fool Canada Senior Analyst Nick Sciple, and this is the 5-Minute Major, here to make you a smarter investor in about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n Today, we\u2019re discussing Canada\u2019s push to build its own sovereign AI infrastructure, including this week\u2019s Telus and federal government announcement of a $9 billion AI data centre cluster in British Columbia. My guest today is Motley Fool Canada Chief Investment Officer Iain Butler. Iain, thank you for joining me once again.<\/p>\n Iain Butler: Pleasure to be here, as always, Nick.<\/p>\n Nick: So, as I alluded in the intro, on Monday, Telus and the Canadian federal government announced plans for a sovereign AI data centre cluster across three British Columbia sites, scaling to 60,000 GPUs and 150 megawatts by 2032. Iain, set the scene for us. What is sovereign AI, and why is Ottawa pushing so hard right now to scale it up?<\/p>\n What is \u2018sovereign AI\u2019 in Canada? <\/p>\n Iain: The headlines we see out of the U.S. are, \u201call AI all the time,\u201d and so it\u2019s kind of nice to see Canada getting into the game to a certain point, but sovereign AI means essentially, Canadian data, Canadian compute and Canadian rules. It\u2019s driven by data protection concerns and over-reliance on foreign hyperscalers \u2014 the U.S. companies that I was just referring to. And Ottawa wants critical workloads under Canadian law. So there was a federal call for proposals earlier this year that required Canadian ownership, data residency, and a Canadian supply chain, and I think we\u2019re seeing that with this week\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n We\u2019re talking real money here. The federal commitment suggests just how serious the government is about this. Budget 2025 put just over $900 million over 5 years towards sovereign large-scale AI compute, and that was on top of a $2 billion commitment announced in Budget 2024.<\/p>\n And then this just announced Telus deal alone represents $9 billion of stated investment, and that\u2019s on top of a separate Celestica-Bell sovereign AI partnership that was announced in April.<\/p>\n Story Continues <\/p>\n So the wheels are in motion, for sure, north of the border on the AI data centre front.<\/p>\n Nick: Lots of money flowing into AI, and some of it has a maple syrup flavor. Iain, you\u2019re the Chief Investment Officer for Motley Fool Canada. Anywhere that\u2019s on your shortlist of, looking to put money to work in this theme, what are some companies on your radar around Canadian sovereign AI?<\/p>\n Iain: Three come to mind, and we\u2019ve actually referred to or mentioned all three in that opening bit.<\/p>\n Celestica: The hardware stock <\/p>\n So, the first one, the hardware partner for Bell\u2019s sovereign AI infrastructure is Celestica.<\/p>\n And many might remember Celestica from its sort of heyday back in the dot-com boom. It\u2019s had a real resurrection. The stock has done tremendously well. So Celestica contributes rack integration, AI server manufacturing, and full-stack hardware design.<\/p>\n And results are showing that it\u2019s well into the game. First-quarter revenue is up 53% year-over-year. Its full-year revenue outlook raised to US$19 billion, and its adjusted EPS guidance is up over $10 a share. So, Celestica would be considered a direct hardware play.<\/p>\n Telus: An under-the-radar AI investment <\/p>\n Telus, again mentioned earlier, is on the operator side of this situation. So back in September, Telus opened its first AI factory in Rimouski, Quebec, and it is already entirely sold out. This week\u2019s announcement for a three-site BC cluster comes online in stages from late 2026 through 2029.<\/p>\n I think what\u2019s really interesting here is that anyone you talk to about Telus, all they care about is dividend sustainability, and that\u2019s a topic for another time. But there\u2019s a lot more to this story as it involves AI infrastructure optionality that I don\u2019t think the market has priced in at all. It\u2019s totally ignoring.<\/p>\n Brookfield Infrastructure Partners: The money play <\/p>\n And finally, we can put forward Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, and really the whole Brookfield empire is all over this theme. So Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (TSX: BIP.UN<\/a>) on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It\u2019s really a picks-and-shovels capital allocator. BIP is already the owner of one of the largest global data centre platforms and is well-positioned to fund and own the infrastructure across both sides of the border.<\/p>\n Nick: Yeah, so there\u2019s an opportunity in hardware, in the operations side of the deal, and as a capital provider through Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. We\u2019re in one of the most significant capex build-outs we\u2019ve seen since the dot-com build-out in the late \u201990s, and lots of opportunities across the world and Canada, not least of which. Alright, folks.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all the time we have for this edition of the 5-Minute Major. As a reminder, if you want more stock ideas from us, you can click on the icon in the upper right corner of your screen. Hope you enjoyed this video, and we\u2019ll see you next time. Fool on.<\/p>\n The post 3 Stocks for Canada\u2019s $9 Billion AI Bet<\/a> appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n Should you invest $1,000 in Brookfield Infrastructure Partners right now? <\/p>\n Before you buy stock in Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, consider this:<\/p>\n The Motley Fool Canada team has identified what they believe are the top 10 TSX stocks for 2026\u2026 and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners wasn\u2019t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could potentially produce monster returns in the coming years.<\/p>\n Consider MercadoLibre, which we first recommended on January 8, 2014 \u2026 if you invested $1,000 in the \u201ceBay of Latin America\u201d at the time of our recommendation, you\u2019d have over $18,000!*<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s worth noting Stock Advisor Canada\u2019s total average return is 94%* \u2013 a market-crushing outperformance compared to 85%* for the S&P\/TSX Composite Index. Don\u2019t miss out on our top 10 stocks, available when you join our mailing list!<\/p>\n Get the 10 stocks instantly<\/a><\/p>\n * Returns as of April 20th, 2026<\/p>\n More reading<\/p>\n Fool contributor Iain Butler<\/a> has positions in TELUS. Fool contributor Nicholas Sciple<\/a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Celestica, and TELUS. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"sovereign AI stocks in canada Written by Iain Butler and Nick Sciple at The Motley Fool Canada Canada…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[239,4894,17,16348,2292,24513,3974,24514,7528],"class_list":["post-55455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-british-columbia","tag-brookfield","tag-canada","tag-celestica","tag-fool-canada","tag-iain-butler","tag-motley-fool","tag-nick-sciple","tag-telus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}