Initiative overview
Announced as part of Canada's Budget 2024 investment of CAD 2 billion over five years (2024–25 to 2028–29) to secure Canada's AI advantage, the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy was formally launched in December 2024. It is organised into three pillars: (1) AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program (AI SCIP) — up to CAD 705M to build a state-of-the-art, publicly-owned, Canadian-operated AI supercomputing system; ISED issued a call for Statements of Interest in February 2025 (closed May 2025), with eligible proponents including not-for-profits, for-profits, academic institutions, and consortia; (2) AI Compute Challenge — up to CAD 700M through a competitive call for proposals to support private-sector AI data centres offering affordable compute to Canadian businesses, with a focus on data sovereignty, sustainability, and use of Canadian supply chains; and (3) Near-term augmentation — CAD 200M to immediately expand existing public compute infrastructure, including CAD 85M to the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, CAD 60M to AI Institutes, and CAD 30M for the VITAL health AI infrastructure. Separately, ISED also launched in January 2026 a non-competitive intake for large-scale sovereign AI data centres (100MW+). The AI SCIP facility will be led by Shared Services Canada (SSC) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) for government and industry R&D, including for national security. The broader strategy aims to make Canada a globally competitive location for AI research, reduce reliance on foreign cloud infrastructure, ensure Canadian data sovereignty, and support academic, government, and commercial AI workloads.
