And of course, as we know, Saskatchewan is the world's largest producer of potash, with growing global demand creating new opportunities to invest and to expand. And these strengths are translating into real investments and real growth. Right now in our province, we have over 60 large-scale projects that are either being planned or are underway. Together, they represent more than 62 billion dollars in private sector investment from people and companies that are choosing Saskatchewan and are choosing Canada. But we're not stopping there. With your investment and your interest in Saskatchewan industries and Saskatchewan people, we have our sights set on the next 100 billion. And in just a few moments, you will hear an announcement that moves us much closer to that goal. Canada is a nation of builders, and we have always built with a purpose. Throughout our history, we have built to secure our sovereignty, to shape our destiny, and to determine our own future.
150 years ago, that meant building a railway across this continent all the way to the Pacific. Today, the infrastructure has changed, but the purpose has not. That same nation-building purpose calls for a new kind of infrastructure — infrastructure that protects our data and secures our sovereignty. Around the world, we are seeing AI data centers being built at extraordinary speed, becoming essential infrastructure for the digital economy. More and more, the information Canadians depend on — our personal information, our financial information, commercial information — it is being stored in these centers. So I would say, as Canadians, we have a choice: do we build the infrastructure necessary to keep Canadian data in Canada, or do we leave our data sovereignty in the hands of other countries?
Well, in Canada and in Saskatchewan, we have made our choice. We will protect what is ours. We will build what we need and determine our destiny on our own terms. The construction of one of Canada's largest data centers is already underway just outside of Regina, due to an investment from Bell Canada. Bell Canada, in partnership with our government and the George Gordon First Nation, is building a 300-megawatt data center that meets every stringent criterion that our government has established. This is already one of the largest private sector projects in the nation of Canada. But in just a couple of minutes, Bell Canada's president and CEO, Mirko Bibic, will announce a significant expansion to that project — one that will essentially quadruple the size of that project. So to Bell Canada, Saskatchewan welcomes you, and Canada thanks you for this investment, this significant investment, and this vote of confidence in this great country. And if there's one thing that we can all take away today, I hope it is this: Saskatchewan and Canada, we are certainly ready.
Ready to provide the food and energy security that the world needs. Ready to strengthen Canada's economic and data sovereignty for investors. The opportunity is very clear — very clear this week. Be a part of Saskatchewan and Canada's growth. Help build our nation's future. Many of the people who can help build what comes next, you are in this room here today, and you are certainly at this conference this week, and I encourage you to connect with one another. So, thank you for your time and interest. Thank you for your belief in our province and in our nation. That belief is well placed because Saskatchewan is strong, Saskatchewan is steady, and I would say that Saskatchewan is certainly ready. Please enjoy the reception here today. And with that, [applause] [applause] I would ask the president and CEO of Bell Canada, Mirko Bibic, to say a few words. [applause]
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Minister, Premier, Prime Minister Carney, Prime Ministers Chrétien and Harper. It's an absolute honor for me to be representing Bell Canada today on this very, very important announcement for the province of Saskatchewan, for Canada, and indeed for Bell's AI fabric initiative. Thank you, gentlemen, for putting in place the conditions that allow for this massive investment, the details of which I'll get to in a second. But before I go there, let me say a few words.
So what we're announcing today is the most ambitious digital infrastructure project in the country. And Premier Moe referred to what we're currently building in Regina. It wasn't that long ago — it was in March of this year — where Minister Harrison and Premier Moe and I shared a stage in Regina, where we announced the plans to build a 300-megawatt data center outside Regina, which was then the largest data center announced in Canada at the time, and currently we're well underway construction. So the largest data center being constructed today. The work is going very well, at scale, at pace. We've got structural frames up for three buildings, foundations being poured for the fourth building, the work going on for the power and cooling infrastructure. So given the momentum, that's a 10- to 12-billion capital investment project in the province of Saskatchewan. The work is going well. The demand signals are so strong that we went to see Minister Harrison and Premier Moe in July of this year and said, you know, why not increase the ambition? And the strategic partnership is working. And here we are today. We're announcing that we're expanding that project, quadrupling it. It will now be a 1.2-gigawatt facility at full buildout, requiring $50 billion in capital investment, economic activity. [applause]
So, I was asked three specific times in the last day and a half, why did you choose Saskatchewan? And for me, the answer was simple: it's because Saskatchewan's a great place to invest. And while it's easy to say, it's really, you know, this government, these gentlemen who have put the conditions in place for us to do this, brought all their resources together, brought, you know, the partners in Saskatchewan that we needed to make this happen — TransGas, SaskPower, SaskTel, who's been a phenomenal partner of Bell Canada's for decades. You've brought that all together to make this happen, and we're grateful for it, and we're happy to do more. And to Prime Minister Carney, thank you for setting the tone. I mean, you're setting the tone for the country. You're bringing leading investors from around the world to see what Canada has on offer and what we can do. And it's, you know, the tone and the ambition like this that's giving us the confidence to put billions of capital in our own country, which is what we ought to do. And I know the sentiment is shared by many Canadian companies across many industrial sectors. That's what it's all about. It's about building. Bell Canada, at its core, for 146 years, has been building the critical communications and technology infrastructure that this country has needed. And we're extremely proud to be making this investment and to take it to the next level for years to come with critical sovereign data infrastructure and AI compute capacity. And with that, Prime Minister, the podium is yours.
