Merritt, Kamloops to benefit with Bell AI Fabric

Bell Canada is rolling out ‘Bell AI Fabric’, what the company is calling a major investment to create Canada’s largest artificial intelligence project. The first fabric facility will open next month in Kamloops, in a partnership between Bell, Groq and Thompson Rivers University. Additional facilities are set to come online throughout B.C. starting in 2026, including one in Merritt and two facilities on the TRU campus.

The first-of-its-kind facility will open next month in Kamloops, the flagship in Bell Canada’s new fabric AI project.

“When you think about building the digital backbone for Canada, really the spine of what will become Sovereign AI in Canada, Kamloops is the ideal place to launch that. We have ample electricity, it’s green, we have the right climate, we are on large tectonic plates, we have environmental stability,” said Dan Rink, President of Bell AI Fabric.

The Kamloops location will be home to two of what Bell calls ‘models’, each home to 83 individual data units, all working together for each and every query.

Groq was chosen as a partner in the development due to speeds in data retrieval.

“This facility is going to bring to the community market the fastest, lowest cost inferencing in the market. When I say inference, that is the actual doing of AI, so when you ask AI, give it a request and you are getting back work or you are asking it to compute some data or do some research, that is inferencing,” explained Rink.

Bell is also joining forces with Thompson Rivers University, providing students and faculty with access to cutting-edge technology for research and other work.

“Having world class AI infrastructure in our backyard and built by Kamloopsians and trade students at TRU will provide our computer science, computer and software engineering, and cyber security students with an invaluable opportunity for experiential learning,” said TRU VP of Administration and Finance Matt Milovick.

While AI technology has grown exponentially over the past decade and future leaps are expected, the Kamloops facility will be future-proof for expansion.

“We are thinking of that when we build these facilities. These facilities are actually built with flexibility in mind. They are large scale data centers, they are fluid cooled, in the way we have designed it we can take racks from 30 kw to 130 kw and beyond. We have sized the pipes and sized the infrastructure to be future proof,” said Rink.

The facility will directly employ 15 people while also providing spinoff jobs and opportunity through its use.

Meanwhile, it’s reported that the project will bring around 50 jobs to the area not including what will be available for the building’s construction.

More to come