February 5, 2026 TELUS is opening Canada’s first fully sovereign AI factory to startups and small businesses. The telecom giant said Wednesday that it has partnered with L-SPARK to give Canadian startups, scaleups and research teams access to the TELUS Sovereign AI Factory, described as the country’s fastest and most powerful supercomputer.
The facility allows companies to train, fine-tune and deploy artificial intelligence models entirely within Canadian borders and under Canadian legal jurisdiction. The partnership is designed to level the playing field between young companies and large enterprises, which have traditionally had the resources to secure advanced computing infrastructure. By opening its AI factory to smaller players, TELUS aims to help Canadian firms scale at home while remaining competitive globally.
TELUS said the AI factory is powered by the latest-generation NVIDIA H200 graphics processing units and NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking, providing the kind of enterprise-grade performance typically available only to large organizations or hyperscale cloud providers.
According to company executives, a lack of domestic, sovereign compute has forced many Canadian startups to send sensitive data abroad or slow their AI ambitions. The new program is intended to give founders access to high-end infrastructure while keeping intellectual property, data and model development under Canadian control.
The initiative will prioritize startups working in regulated and mission-critical sectors where data residency and auditability are essential, including public services, health care, finance, critical infrastructure and utilities.
L-SPARK, which bills itself as Canada’s leading corporate accelerator partner, said it will help identify and onboard high-potential companies with defined AI workloads and significant GPU requirements. The accelerator has supported more than 130 Canadian companies over the past decade, helping them raise more than $200 million in follow-on funding.
TELUS said the partnership builds on its broader efforts to support entrepreneurs and small businesses, including initiatives such as TELUS Global Ventures, the #StandWithOwners program and the TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good. The company plans to expand access to its sovereign AI infrastructure through additional partnerships with accelerators, incubators, research institutions and innovation hubs across the country.
Startups and research teams interested in the program can apply through L-SPARK to access reserved GPU capacity at the TELUS AI Factory.
