New facility delivers advanced accelerated compute infrastructure to help enterprise and government organizations scale AI workloads securely within Canada

This news release contains forward-looking statements. For a description of the related risk factors and assumptions, please see the section entitled "Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements" later in this news release.

MONTRÉAL, March 25, 2026 /CNW/ - Bell Canada (TSX: BCE) today announced the continued growth of Bell AI Fabric through an expanded partnership with BUZZ High Performance Computing (HPC), a wholly owned subsidiary of HIVE Digital Technologies LTD. (TSXV: HIVE), to deliver advanced, sovereign AI infrastructure in Merritt, B.C.

BUZZ HPC has secured an immediate 6.5 MW of gross capacity¹ at the Bell AI Fabric Merritt facility with an option for potential additional power that may become available over time. At this site, BUZZ HPC will continue scaling its next-generation GPU clusters for commercial use. Expected to come online in the coming weeks, the facility represents the next step in Bell AI Fabric's data centre supercluster, providing Canadian organizations with the high-performance computing capacity needed to drive the next generation of AI innovation.

The Merritt data centre is specifically engineered to handle AI's most intense computational demands. Powered by BUZZ HPC's specialized high-density, liquid-cooled infrastructure and accelerated GPU compute, the facility provides the design, implementation and scaling expertise required for complex AI workloads, including inference and training.

"We are excited to deliver cutting-edge AI infrastructure and deployment expertise to our customers through our partnership with BUZZ HPC at our Merritt facility. This partnership provides another important layer to the Bell AI Fabric ecosystem, delivering the advanced workloads our customers need in a sovereign, private and secure Canadian facility. Partnerships like these are instrumental to BCE Inc. delivering on our ambition to grow our revenue from AI-powered solutions to $2 billion by 2028²."

-       John Watson, Group President, Business Markets, AI and Ateko, Bell

This partnership brings together BUZZ HPC's expertise in GPU-accelerated computing with Bell AI Fabric, a full-stack AI offering anchored by the company's nationwide fibre network, data centre infrastructure, software, cloud capabilities, advanced professional integration services and partner ecosystem – allowing Canadian innovators to access massive compute power while adhering to strict data residency standards with a comprehensive, made-in-Canada AI solution.

"BUZZ HPC is expanding its AI infrastructure with Bell AI Fabric across two Canadian provinces, including new capacity in British Columbia to scale near-term deployments. This marks a major step in BUZZ's journey to become a leading national sovereign AI platform, scaling our reach to serve both Canadian innovators and international customers. Together, Bell and BUZZ are delivering the secure, high-performance accelerated compute Canada needs to compete globally in AI."

-       Craig Tavares, President and COO, BUZZ HPC

"Purpose-built AI infrastructure – sometimes described as AI factories – is essential to transforming compute power into intelligence at scale and accelerating the potential of AI technology. Through our partnership with Bell AI Fabric, we are providing Canadian companies with sovereign compute to help them deploy AI securely and at scale to support advanced use cases across sectors ranging from healthcare to defence and beyond."

-       Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman, BUZZ HPC

Today's announcement expands upon Bell and BUZZ HPC's previously announced partnership to deploy high-performance GPU clusters in Bell AI Fabric's sovereign facilities.

About Bell
Bell is Canada's largest communications company³, leading the way in advanced fibre and wireless networks, enterprise services and digital media. By delivering next-generation technology that leverages cloud-based and AI-driven solutions, we're keeping customers connected, informed and entertained while enabling businesses to compete on the world stage. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca or BCE.ca.

About BUZZ HPC
BUZZ High Performance Computing (BUZZ), a wholly owned subsidiary of HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. (TSX.V: HIVE) (the "Company" or "HIVE"), and an NVIDIA Cloud Partner, delivers enterprise-grade cloud services and large-scale GPU clusters in vertically integrated data centres. Proudly Canadian, BUZZ is building sovereign AI factories while operating across 9 time zones and 3 continents. The platform supports a suite of managed services, including Kubernetes, Slurm, virtual machines, and bare-metal deployments optimized for AI, machine learning, and scientific workloads. Headquartered in Canada with a global reach, BUZZ is one of the first and few Canadian sovereign AI platforms operating at scale. Since 2017, it has deployed supercomputing environments across Canada and the Nordics. Its AI Factories are powered entirely by renewable energy and engineered with ultra-low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) host thousands of industrial-grade GPUs across North America, South America and Europe used for AI model training, fine-tuning and inference.

Through its Green GPU initiative, BUZZ combines AI innovation with sustainability, offering localized expertise and global infrastructure.

Learn more at https://www.buzzhpc.ai

Media inquiries: 
Audrey Hood
media@bell.ca 

Investor inquiries: 
Kris Somers
Krishna.somers@bell.ca

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements made in this news release are forward-looking statements, including statements relating to: the extended partnership between Bell Canada and BUZZ HPC to deliver advanced, sovereign accelerated artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in Merritt, B.C. and the benefits expected to result therefrom; the planned launch of Bell AI Fabric's AI data center in Merritt, B.C. (the facility) and the expected timing thereof; the potential additional megawatts of gross capacity to be secured by BUZZ HPC at the facility over time; BCE's objective to achieve $2.0 billion of AI-powered solutions revenue by 2028; and other statements that are not historical facts. All such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the "safe harbour" provisions of applicable Canadian securities laws and of the United States Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are based on several assumptions which give rise to the possibility that actual results or events could differ materially from our expectations. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events, and we caution you against relying on any of these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release describe Bell Canada's expectations at the date of this news release and, accordingly, are subject to change after such date. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Bell Canada does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this news release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Forward-looking statements made in this news release, including the planned launch of the facility, BCE's objective to achieve $2.0 billion of AI-powered solutions revenue by 2028, as well as the benefits expected to result from the extended partnership between Bell Canada and BUZZ HPC, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and are based on certain assumptions including, without limitation, the availability of sufficient equipment, labour and capital and the demand by Canadian enterprise and government organizations for Canadian-based AI infrastructure and solutions. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that the planned launch of the facility will be completed, that BCE's objective of $2.0 billion of AI-powered solutions revenue by 2028 will be achieved, or that the benefits expected to result from the extended partnership between Bell Canada and BUZZ HPC will be realized. For additional information on assumptions and risks underlying certain of our forward-looking statements made in this news release, please consult BCE Inc.'s (BCE) 2025 Annual MD&A dated March 5, 2026, and BCE's news release dated March 16, 2026 with respect to BCE's update to its 2026 financial guidance targets and 2025-2028 financial outlook, filed with the Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities (available at sedarplus.ca) and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (available at SEC.gov). These documents are also available at BCE.ca.

SOURCE Bell Canada (MTL)