Canadian Sovereign AI

AI Is Infrastructure, Not Software

The popular understanding of artificial intelligence focuses on models and algorithms — software that can be copied, shared, and run anywhere. The reality is that AI is primarily an infrastructure problem. Training a frontier model requires thousands of GPUs, months of continuous operation, and megawatts of electricity. Inference — actually using these models — requires sustained compute capacity indefinitely. Whoever owns the infrastructure controls the AI. In 2026, that infrastructure is overwhelmingly American-owned.

The National Security Dimension

Canadian governments at every level manage data that is sensitive, personal, and strategically important: health records, social services files, justice and corrections data, financial records, defence information. When this data is processed on foreign-owned infrastructure, it is subject to foreign legal instruments regardless of where the servers are physically located. The Province of Alberta has recognized this risk explicitly, issuing formal procurement for sovereign compute environments where all data remains under exclusive Canadian legal control. Other provinces will follow.

Building Canadian Capacity

Sovereign AI requires investment in three areas simultaneously: physical compute infrastructure on Canadian soil, an open-source software ecosystem free of foreign dependencies, and skilled Canadian personnel with appropriate security clearances to operate the environment. Yamoria, founded by Jerald Sibbeston, is building all three — with a particular focus on training northern and Indigenous technologists who can operate sovereign infrastructure from within their own communities.