Canadian telco Bell is expanding its planned data center development in Saskatchewan.

Bell Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan today announced a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to expand Bell AI Fabric in Saskatchewan, with the phased development of up to 900MW of additional capacity.

Bell said the site also has a path to 1.2GW and represents the largest capital investment in Saskatchewan’s history. At full buildout, total capital investment associated with this project, including data center infrastructure, tenant compute, and related power generation, could exceed $50 billion

The additional capacity will rely on partner-developed natural gas power generation, and Bell said the proposed facilities will use closed-loop cooling technology that requires no municipal water.

Timelines haven’t been shared and will be phased as customer commitments are secured.

“Canada’s next generation of economic growth will be built on Canadian infrastructure,” said Mirko Bibic, president and CEO, BCE and Bell Canada. “By creating a path to 1.2GW of AI capacity in Saskatchewan, Bell AI Fabric will give governments, businesses, researchers and innovators the secure, sovereign foundation they need to deploy AI at scale and compete globally.”

News that Bell was looking to develop on a 160-acre site outside Regina in the Rural Municipality of Sherwood surfaced in February. The company then announced plans for a 300MW campus, with CoreWeave and Cerebras as customers. The first stage is expected to come online in the first half of 2027 and reach full build-out by the end of the year.

Scott Moe, Premier of Saskatchewan, added: “This historic investment will create thousands of good jobs and new opportunities for Saskatchewan people. It will also strengthen Canadian data sovereignty by keeping Canadian data here at home, stored by a Canadian company and protected under Canadian rules. When it comes to data storage, keeping that home ice advantage means Canadians set the rules and remain in control.”

The campus is part of a major AI build-out across Canada by Bell. Last year, the company announced plans to build AI data centers across the country, starting with six data centers in British Columbia, supported by 500MW of hydroelectric power.

At the time, the company said it would bring a 7MW facility online in Kamloops alongside chip firm Groq, followed by two other 26MW facilities in the area. A 7MW facility was also planned in Merritt, British Columbia, with Bell additionally partnering with Hive’s AI cloud unit Buzz on a 5MW Nvidia GPU cluster in Manitoba. An AI facility in partnership with Ontario-based Queen’s University is also planned.

Bell previously sold a portfolio of data centers across Canada to Equinix in 2020, retaining a handful of key networking facilities. Bell also has an Edge data center business in the US through its recent acquisition of Ziply Fiber.