For much of the digital era, data centres and large-scale compute—the computing power needed to train and run advanced software, including AI—were treated as background infrastructure: technical systems that enabled growth but did not meaningfully shape strategy. Today, that view is changing. Governments across advanced economies are recognizing that who controls large-scale computing capacity matters, shaping which technologies emerge, which firms can scale, and how much influence states retain over systems that increasingly affect both the economy and security.

Export Controls and the Legalization of Access

This shift is visible in how Canada’s peers are beginning to frame and regulate digital infrastructure. In the United States, access to advanced computing hardware is now addressed through export control policy linked to national security considerations. A January 2026 update to U.S. licensing rules revised how applications to export certain advanced computing chips are reviewed, signalling that high-performance compute is no longer treated solely as a commercial technology.

A similar reframing is evident elsewhere. In the United Kingdom, compute capacity is treated as a matter of resilience and strategic preparedness. Further, in the European Union, cloud and digital infrastructure are framed as pillars of economic security and technological autonomy. While these approaches differ in form, they reflect a shared recognition that data centres and AI compute have strategic importance beyond their commercial value.

Against this backdrop,Canada has not yet fully adopted a similar view. Despite increasingly urgent rhetoric around digital sovereignty and artificial intelligence, Ottawa continues to treat cloud infrastructure primarily as a service to be procured, rather than as a strategic asset to be governed. The international context makes this gap harder to ignore. Over the past decade, the United States has steadily expanded the extraterritorial reach of its digital authority, underscoring how infrastructure decisions can carry legal and sovereign consequences beyond........

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