Canada Declares Digital Independence, But ‘Sovereignty Is Not Solitude’

InnovationConsumer TechCanada Declares Digital Independence, But ‘Sovereignty Is Not Solitude’ByJohn Koetsier,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Journalist, analyst, author, podcaster.Follow AuthorMay 12, 2026, 02:29pm EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Canada declared digital independence at Web Summit in Vancouver today, as Evan Solomon, Canada's first-ever Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, unveiled $300 million in AI datacenter grants.gettyWhen a single American hyperscaler can drop $100 billion on AI infrastructure in a single year, what’s a middle power supposed to do? Canada’s answer, delivered at Web Summit Vancouver this week by the country’s first-ever Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation isn’t surrender. Nor is it a moonshot attempting to match U.S. spend dollar-for-dollar.Instead, it’s a softer declaration of digital independence, with an acknowledgment that independence doesn’t necessarily mean isolation."Sovereignty is not solitude," Minister Evan Solomon said in a press conference Tuesday morning at the Vancouver Convention Centre. "We are going to do business with the United States. They are our biggest customer."That said, Solomon announced 44 new projects across British Columbia receiving up to $66 million through Canada’s Compute Access Fund, a $300-million program launched in July that the minister says is "wildly oversubscribed." The goal is Canadian data centers serving Canadian companies and Canadian citizens, along with any other global customers that might come along. The fund subsidizes 50 cents on the dollar for compute access, rising to 67 cents on the dollar when that compute is Canadian. It’s a thumb on the scale, Solomon says, which is modest by hyperscaler standards but explicitly designed to build a domestic comput...