Bell Canada Advances AI Fabric Expansion With Proposed 160-Acre Campus South of Regina
Bell Canada is seeking to rezone more than 160 acres of agricultural land south of Regina, Saskatchewan, to allow for the construction of a new data center campus tied to its national AI strategy.
Documents prepared for a Feb. 9 special meeting of the council of the Rural Municipality of Sherwood No. 159 show a proposal to amend Zoning Bylaw No. 18/17 to reclassify NW 33-16-19 W2M and Block/Parcel A, Plan 102362341 from Agricultural District 1 to Light Industrial District 1. The meeting was first reported by CBC.ca.
A report to council states the current zoning permits future development of a “Data and Research Centre, including accessory offices and surface parking,” across approximately 160 acres of land . If approved, the rezoning would allow the proponent to proceed with development, subject to submission of a fully detailed design and a development agreement.
In a letter of intent included in the application package, 1059 Saskatchewan Ltd. said the land comprises roughly 64.71 hectares, or about 160 acres, bounded to the west by Park Street and to the north by Old Highway 16. The company is seeking to change the site from agricultural to commercial/industrial use to permit “Data Centres, research centres, and other commercial/industrial uses including accessory and surface parking.”
The submission describes the project as a campus of interconnected low-rise data center buildings totalling approximately 46,575 square metres, or about 501,345 square feet, with space for up to 300-plus parking stalls. Construction would be phased, with the first stage consisting of an 8,500-square-metre building expected to be expedited in 2026.
The proposed campus would include a SaskPower substation to supply electricity and would be designed to meet or exceed environmental and regulatory requirements, according to the filing. The applicant also indicated potential research collaboration with the University of Regina, including the sustainable development of greenhouses to reclaim heat generated by the data centers.
The City of Regina, in a referral response dated Jan. 26, said it agreed to waive the requirement for a concept or secondary plan for the rezoning under unique circumstances, noting the proposal accommodates a data center campus within the city’s Official Community Plan framework.
Although the rezoning application was filed by a numbered company, supporting materials and previous public announcements indicate the project is part of Bell Canada’s “AI Fabric” initiative, unveiled in 2025 as a multiyear effort to establish a national network of AI-focused data centers.
Bell AI Fabric has been positioned as a sovereign AI compute platform aimed at serving government and enterprise customers across Canada. The initiative targets up to 500 megawatts of hydro-powered capacity across at least six facilities nationwide, with initial sites announced in British Columbia, including inference facilities in Kamloops and Merritt and larger training hubs planned in subsequent phases.
Bell has also partnered with BUZZ HPC, the high-performance computing unit of Canadian bitcoin miner HIVE Digital (NASDAQ: HIVE), to supply NVIDIA GPU clusters for the AI Fabric platform. Under that agreement, BUZZ HPC is providing Ampere, Hopper and next-generation Blackwell-based systems interconnected via NVIDIA InfiniBand networking, with the first 5-megawatt deployment planned in Manitoba and additional rollouts at other Bell AI Fabric sites.
Bell Canada is a subsidiary of BCE Inc., one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies, serving wireless, broadband and enterprise customers nationwide.
