{"id":334678,"date":"2025-12-09T14:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334678\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:11:10","slug":"microsoft-vows-to-protect-digital-sovereignty-in-7-5-billion-canadian-data-centre-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334678\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft vows to protect \u2018digital sovereignty\u2019 in $7.5-billion Canadian data-centre expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith is in Ottawa this week to meet with government officials and employees.Thibault Camus\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Microsoft Corp. MSFT-T<\/a> will spend more than $7.5-billion in Canada over the next two years as part of a data-centre expansion, while vowing to keep data within Canadian borders and resist any orders to discontinue services to government customers that could arise during uncertain geopolitical times. <\/p>\n

The company\u2019s president and vice-chair Brad Smith is in Ottawa Tuesday to meet with government officials and employees as part of the announcement. The funds will be used for Microsoft\u2019s operational expenses along with capital spending to expand its data centres in Canada, including adding graphics processing units (GPUs) to handle AI workloads. Mr. Smith wrote in a blog post Tuesday that Microsoft has allotted $19-billion to Canada between 2023 and 2027. <\/p>\n

In an interview Monday, Mr. Smith was eager to emphasize Microsoft\u2019s commitment to digital sovereignty, which broadly refers to the control a country can exercise over its data and the infrastructure powering AI and cloud computing. <\/p>\n

\u201cDigital sovereignty has become a more important issue around the world,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing in Canada is two very distinct things. One is the change in the dialogue with the United States. The other is the increase in activity from around the world that\u2019s targeting Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The fraught relationship with the U.S. under President Donald Trump is forcing Canadian companies and governments to reassess their reliance<\/a> on American tech giants, including Microsoft, for crucial digital services. Cyberthreats targeting Canadian entities are also boosting the need for stronger cybersecurity measures, according to Mr. Smith.<\/p>\n

Digital sovereignty is a thorny challenge for the federal government<\/a>. Ottawa wants more data centres built in Canada to support growing AI usage and to foster homegrown alternatives to the dominance of U.S. tech giants, which also include Google, Amazon Web Services and Oracle, to lessen geopolitical vulnerabilities and capture more economic benefits. Of particular concern is the ability of U.S. courts to request data from the subsidiaries of American companies, even if the data is stored within Canada.<\/p>\n

Last year, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau launched a sovereign AI compute program to help fund data centres, while current Prime Minister Mark Carney has also embraced the construction of a sovereign cloud. <\/p>\n

Federal AI Minister Evan Solomon has expounded on the topic<\/a> and reiterated the message at a meeting of G7 industry, digital and technology ministers on Monday in Montreal. He said that Canada has to develop strategic autonomy, which means working with other middle powers such as European Union countries to \u201cscale up\u201d AI capabilities. \u201cOur policy objective is to increase our trade with trusted partners, and the EU is obviously core to that strategy,\u201d he told reporters. <\/p>\n

Mr. Smith said Microsoft can provide government and corporate customers with control over data, despite being an American company, through technical, operational and contractual measures. Starting next year, Microsoft will add the ability to process data for its Copilot AI platform inside Canada\u2019s borders and allow customers to run other services on their own cloud infrastructure. Customer data is also encrypted and the keys can be stored with customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about looking for the best combination of tools that will both protect the country\u2019s digital sovereignty and support the economy,\u201d Mr. Smith said.<\/p>\n

Google Canada has also emphasized similar protection measures including data boundaries such as encryption to prevent unauthorized access. <\/p>\n

Microsoft said it is \u201ccodifying\u201d a promise to protect customer data, agreeing to challenge any demands to access government and commercial information where it has legal grounds to do so. <\/p>\n

It also said it would fight any effort to cut off services to Canadian government customers. \u201cIf ever confronted with an order to suspend or halt operations in Canada, we will pursue every available legal and diplomatic avenue \u2013 including litigation \u2013 to protect access to critical infrastructure,\u201d Mr. Smith wrote in his blog post.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear what would happen should such a scenario play out. Mr. Trump, for example, has found some success bending institutions to his will<\/a>. Hypothetically, if the U.S. President orders Microsoft to discontinue services to the Canadian government as a trade-war bargaining tactic, would Microsoft risk suffering the consequences of running afoul of the administration \u2013 or succumb to political pressure?<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at our track record. We have always worked diplomatically to address challenges that have arisen, while also standing firmly on the side of principles that we feel are timeless,\u201d Mr. Smith said in response, noting the company has gone to court with U.S. administrations in the past.<\/p>\n

Canadian-owned and operated cloud companies may be saddled with less geopolitical risk. Telecommunications carriers BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. entered the AI data-centre business this year, while Toronto-based cloud company ThinkOn Inc. has long made data sovereignty part of its pitch.<\/p>\n

These companies are smaller than the tech giants, however. Complete digital autonomy is also \u201cimpossible,\u201d according to a Treasury Board report<\/a>, because of the \u201cabsolute interconnected nature of the digital world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Smith seemed to agree. \u201cThis notion of being able to cut oneself off from everyone outside one\u2019s own borders and be entirely self-sufficient is not, in my view, a recipe for innovation or economic growth for any country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With reports from Nicolas Van Praet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith is in Ottawa this week to meet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-334678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}