Policy / Opening up
Canada
Canada is funding sovereign AI compute and inviting proposals for very large domestic data centres.
The federal government opened an AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program on 15 April 2026 for large AI-optimised systems built and run in Canada. It also ran a call for large sovereign AI data centre proposals over 100MW from 15 January to 15 February 2026, which is now closed. Both are federal programmes rather than permitting rules, and provincial regimes for planning and power are not covered here.
The rules and programmes
| Instrument | Kind | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program | Programme | in force from 15 April 2026 | Invites eligible organisations to design, build and operate large AI high-performance computing systems in Canada. |
| Enabling large-scale sovereign AI data centres | Programme | ended from 15 January 2026 | Submission window closed 15 February 2026; projects had to exceed 100MW and serve varied Canadian clients. |
Checked against the primary sources linked above on 2 October 2026. Due for review by 1 January 2027. This is a summary, not legal advice. If something is out of date, tell us.