ThinkOn, Hypertec Group, Aptum and eStruxture team up to keep Canada's data under control.
Four Canadian cloud providers have teamed up to launch a sovereign offering for government customers.
“This initiative restores both data and operational sovereignty, ensuring the Government of Canada can run its most critical workloads under its own control.”
ThinkOn, Hypertec Group, Aptum and eStruxture are contributing components of what they claim is Canada's first end-to-end, sovereign, artificial intelligence (AI)-ready government cloud. The firms say the partnership allows the Government of Canada and its ecosystem of software providers to run mission-critical workloads in a Canadian-controlled cloud.
Each partner contributes. While eStruxture provides its own data centers, which are already operational across Canada, Hypertec supplies the hardware. ThinkOn provides cloud and data services, while Aptum provides the orchestration and management platform.
This collaboration takes into account the unique circumstances of each company in the Canadian market. ThinkOn is the only Canadian company approved to sell cloud services to the government, Hypertec is the only original equipment manufacturer headquartered in Canada for chip giant Nvidia, and eStruxture is the country's largest data center builder. Notably, Aptum President and CEO Ian Ray is a member of the Canadian AI Strategy Task Force.
“Our locally assembled systems provide operational sovereignty at the hardware level, and our sovereign heritage retains greater value in Canada's digital value chain rather than leaking overseas,” Hypertec CEO Simon Adut said in a statement. Hypertek also recently entered into partnership with 5C and the Mila Institute of Artificial Intelligence to launch the Sovereign Artificial Intelligence Research Center in Montreal.
CONNECTED: Canada hopes to create a sovereign cloud to counter US dominance. It won't be easy
Below are ready-to-purchase offerings from four cloud providers. elevated conversation around Canada's data sovereignty capabilities. Canada's Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon called digital sovereignty “the most pressing political and democratic issue of our time” at the ALL IN conference in Montreal last month. Prime Minister Mark Carney recently announced that developing a “Canadian sovereign cloud” will be one of the top priorities of the newly created Major Projects Office.
American firms own nearly a third of Canada's 283 data centersbut storing information in Canadian data centers does not guarantee sovereignty. Under US CLOUD Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), data hosted on servers owned by US companies may be disclosed to US law enforcement upon request.
“For too long, Canadian government data in foreign-owned clouds has been subject to laws written outside our borders,” ThinkOn CEO Craig McLellan said in a statement. “This initiative restores both data and operational sovereignty, ensuring the Government of Canada can run its most critical workloads under its own control.”
Artistic image courtesy of Scott Rogerson via Unsplash.
