By David Reevely
Publication Date: 2026-03-23 10:45:00
OTTAWA — American hyperscalers can be trustworthy holders of critical Canadian data, IBM Canada’s chief technology officer says—an idea that he believes he’s persuading governments to adopt.
Political leaders’ views on what digital sovereignty means are “maturing,” after months of discussions about what assuring the sovereignty of Canada’s data and key digital systems really means, says Manav Gupta.
Talking Points
- Canadians need cloud computing from U.S. providers, says IBM Canada CTO Manav Gupta, and politicians have come around to that after a knee-jerk impulse to try to go it alone in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks
- The options go far beyond insisting that Canadian data stay in Canada, including deep encryption and kill switches for connections to hyperscalers’ global clouds
“Sovereignty does not equal solitude,” Gupta says, echoing a phrase much employed by AI Minister Evan Solomon. In an interview with…
