IBM Enhances Enterprise Cloud Capabilities in Canada to Meet Local Clients’ AI and Data Needs

• IBM’s Cloud Multizone Region (MZR) in Montreal opens doors to support Canada’s regulated industries with cloud solutions which prioritize data sovereignty through resiliency, performance, security, and compliance
• IBM’s watsonx® AI portfolio available on IBM Cloud® at Toronto MZR, enabling Canadian organizations to scale AI solutions in country

Armonk, NY (Apr. 3, 2025) – IBM is pleased to announce two key advances in its cloud capabilities in Canada, further strengthening offerings to enable Canadian organizations to scale AI deployments, and to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements for data storage and security including Canadian data sovereignty.

IBM officially opened the doors to its latest Cloud MZR in Montreal, Quebec, adding to its existing Cloud capabilities and investments across North America. IBM aims to help clients address their evolving regulatory requirements and leverage technology such as Generative AI with our secured, enterprise cloud platform.

IBM Cloud offers a high-performance, flexible, AI-optimized infrastructure with bare metal and virtual server Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) options, for IBM watsonx or other generative AI solutions. The availability of watsonx, IBM’s portfolio of AI products, on IBM Cloud at Toronto MZR addresses the growing demand for scalable, safe and responsible AI deployments in Canada. It will enable Canadian organizations to achieve high levels of reliability, scalability and security while ensuring compliance with Canada’s stringent data privacy and residency requirements.

“Our focus is on meeting the evolving needs of our clients across Canada and today is a critical milestone in providing IBM infrastructure and solutions that can help them boost productivity and performance while keeping data in-country,” said Deb Pimentel, IBM Canada President and General Manager, Technology Canada. “While we continue enriching our existing Toronto Cloud MZR with cutting-edge AI capabilities, we’re thrilled to officially open the doors to our new Montreal Cloud MZR. These developments underscore our relentless pursuit to build robust, capable cloud infrastructure across Canada, fostering an ecosystem that drives AI innovation responsibly and securely.”

Both the Montreal and Toronto MZR will offer numerous advantages to clients including access to innovative enterprise cloud-as-a-service capabilities such as IBM Cloud VPC, Red Hat® Cloud Native Products, IBM Power® Virtual Server (VS), VMware Cloud Foundations (VCF) as a Service and more:

• Data sovereignty: Enterprises in regulated industries such as government and financial services, can manage and store data locally to comply with Canada’s stringent privacy regulations, ensuring sensitive information remains secure.
• Low latency connectivity: IBM Cloud’s high-performance network connectivity significantly reduces latency for users across Canada, essential for real-time data processing.
• Scalable AI: The modular design enables businesses to scale operations seamlessly, provisioning resources quickly based on demand.
• Access to advanced generative AI models: Clients can leverage a variety of generative AI models including Llama-3-2-11b-vision-instruct and Granite-34b-code-instruct.
• Open hybrid cloud strategy: The MZRs provide the ability to integrate the best features and functions from any cloud or traditional IT environment and tap the unmatched pace and quality of innovations from the open-source community.
  • IBM Power VS allows enterprises to deploy and manage virtual server instances running AIX, IBM i, or Linux workloads in a hybrid cloud environment, offering a flexible and scalable platform for mission-critical applications
  • IBM’s collaboration with Hugging Face aims to bring the best of open-source AI models to the enterprise using the watsonx portfolio.

These in-country IBM Cloud MZRs are designed to enable Canadian clients to deploy AI and mission-critical workloads with high levels of security, and help clients address their data sovereignty and regulatory compliance requirements. This includes helping them on their journey to demonstrate their compliance with the Government of Canada’s Protected B Medium Profile, a security level defined by the government for sensitive information and assets.

“Globally, enterprises, especially those in highly regulated sectors such as financial services, government, and healthcare need solutions that are tailored to their unique challenges,” said Rohit Badlaney, GM for IBM Cloud Product & Industry Platforms. “With our latest advancements in Canada, we are extending IBM’s enterprise cloud platform and sovereign cloud capabilities to Canadian organizations in these sectors, helping them to address their local regulatory requirements, keeping data secured and maintain it in country.”

As Canadian businesses seek to scale AI while ensuring trust and compliance, IBM Cloud and watsonx are poised to provide the necessary tools and platforms to maximize return on investment for AI initiatives. These new capabilities are the latest in IBM investments across North America to support clients on their modernization journeys. Our MZRs and data centers across Washington, D.C., Dallas, San Jose, Toronto, and Montreal strengthen our clients’ ability to deploy locally and scale globally.

Learn more about IBM’s enterprise sovereign cloud capabilities, or explore the power of IBM watsonx and how watsonx Developer Hub can help developers scale AI at speed.

About IBM

IBM (NYSE: IBM) is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.

Source: IBM

Tags: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud, IBM, Watson