Skip to main content

A pedestrian is reflected in the window of a Telus store while using a mobile phone in Ottawa February 11, 2011.© Chris Wattie / Reuters/Reuters

Telus Corp. is bulking up its investment in Quebec in conjunction with the opening of a new data centre.

The Vancouver-based telecommunications company said Tuesday that it is earmarking an additional $13-million for information technology infrastructure after launching operations at a $65-million data centre in Rimouski, a city of about 47,000 located on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River.

Telus, like other telecom providers, is ramping up its offerings of cloud-computing services, which is becoming an increasingly competitive area of business information technology. Part of that strategy involves investing in data centres, which function as ultra-modern server farms, with eye to creating future streams of revenue.

Billing it "intelligent Internet data centre," Telus said the new facility would be linked to its national Internet protocol network and other major Canadian data centres. It is also expected to be more energy efficient than regular data centres due to Rimouski's cool climate.

"With our new Internet Data Centre, companies can now harness the power of managed hosting and cloud computing solutions that are not only reliable, secure and flexible, but also hosted, managed and delivered in Canada," François Gratton, president of Telus Quebec and Atlantic Canada, said in a release.

Telus's chief rival, BCE Inc., is also making more moves in the cloud-computing space. Earlier this year, BCE teamed up with a consortium of investors to purchase Internet company Q9 Networks Inc., one of the country's largest providers of outsourced data centre services. Cogeco Data Services, meanwhile, opened a new data centre located in Toronto's financial district in June.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe