National initiative can strengthen security, data sovereignty, and sustainability for Canada's Global Leadership in artificial intelligence (AI).
Hypertec, a Canadian global leader in sustainable AI infrastructure, and Simon Fraser University (SFU), home to Canada's most powerful academic supercomputer, today (Nov 20) announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to transform SFU's Cedar Supercomputing Centre into Canada's flagship sovereign AI data centre.
SFU president and vice-chancellor Joy Johnson and Simon Ahdoot, CEO of the Hypertec Group, attend the Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC) 2025 Conference in Ottawa.
These partners hope the project, which is contingent on securing funding to expand the centre, will bring together government, academia, and industry to secure Canada's leadership in artificial intelligence, strengthen national and economic security, and enable a trusted, Canadian-built supply chain for the country's most critical digital infrastructure.
"This collaboration with SFU represents a generational investment in Canada's sovereign AI future," says Simon Ahdoot, CEO of the Hypertec Group. "By combining Hypertec's Canadian-built infrastructure and immersion cooling innovation with SFU's research leadership, we are creating a secure, sustainable platform for Canadian researchers, defence partners, and innovators to access world-class compute on Canadian soil."
The expansion of the Cedar Supercomputing Centre will create a sovereign, Canadian-controlled environment for AI research, dual-use technology development, and defence-related workloads, safeguarding sensitive data from foreign interference.
The expanded centre will support Canadian economic security and competitiveness, providing next-generation compute capacity for Canada's innovation ecosystem, enabling Canadian firms and researchers to access the best available technology faster and compete effectively on the global stage. Through a Buy Canadian' procurement strategy, the project will maximize participation by Canadian technology manufacturers, engineers, and suppliers, strengthening domestic supply chains.
The Centre is also a leader in sustainable infrastructure. Powered by BCHydro's clean hydroelectricity, the Centre will further advance its energy efficiency through cutting-edge technologies like Hypertec's immersion cooling, which reduces cooling energy consumption by up to 40% and significantly lowers carbon emissions.
Cedar currently serves over 17,000 researchers and industry users nationwide, supporting GPU-intensive model training, quantum simulations, and mission-critical workloads. With this expansion, Canada's research and industry community will gain unprecedented access to sovereign, scalable, high-performance computing capacity supporting SMEs, public institutions, and federal agencies as they deploy AI responsibly and competitively.
"The partnership with Hypertec and our Buy Canadian' approach will strengthen Canada's position in low-carbon, AI-optimized infrastructure while showcasing homegrown capabilities across both public and private sectors," says Dugan O'Neil, SFU's Vice-President, Research & Innovation.
About Hypertec
Founded in 1984, Hypertec's mission is to bring expertise, innovation, and strong partnerships to transform challenges into opportunities for sustainable growth through technology solutions. Trusted by industry leaders across AI, financial services, healthcare, public sectors and others, we serve clients in over 80 countries and empower them to push boundaries and lead their industries through transformative technology. For more information, please visit www.hypertec.com.
