Microsoft says it will spend $7.5 billion CAD over the next two years to build new digital and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in Canada–infrastructure that the United States tech giant claims will support Canadian digital sovereignty.

The funding will go towards expanding computing capacity at Microsoft’s two primary Azure data centre regions: Toronto’s Canada Central and Québec City’s Canada East. The company announced the expansion in a blog post on Tuesday, penned by Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith.

Microsoft has pledged to “keep Canadian data on Canadian soil,” but experts say that storing data in Canadian data centres does not guarantee data sovereignty.

Smith claims that the expanded data centres will power everything from modernized public services to a

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