Bell CEO ‘confident’ in lofty revenue targets as it doubles down on AI data centres

Bell signage is seen at BCE Inc., headquarters in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

MONTREAL —Bell Canada’s parent company has upped its revenue target for its growing AI business by a third as it moves forward with plans to build a cluster of data centres, while assuring it will maintain “responsible usage” of the technology.

BCE Inc. chief executive Mirko Bibic said Thursday that with the recent announcement of a 300-megawatt data centre in rural Saskatchewan, the company now expects to generate around $2 billion in revenue from its portfolio of AI-powered enterprise solutions by 2028.

That’s up from its previous objective of $1.5 billion in revenue over three years.

“We’re confident in that target and frankly, I see potential beyond it,” Bibic told analysts on a conference call as BCE reported its first-quarter results, which included a profit attributable to common shareholders of $616 million or 66 cents per diluted share.

“We have line of sight to monetizing approximately 800 megawatts of power over time and our pipeline of interest remains deep and active.”

Bibic declined to elaborate further on that interest, which he said comes from “a number of significant potential customers.”

“AI-powered solutions is creating significant differentiated value for this company,” he said.

“It’s closely tied to our core business. It’s disciplined, demand-led, and return-driven. And it’s a growth vector that no other Canadian telecom has.”

Along with the $1.7-billion Saskatchewan facility, which Bibic said will eventually contribute around $500 million in revenue annually, BCE has three other fully contracted data centres. They include a facility in Kamloops, B.C., which opened last year, another in Merritt, B.C., that launched in March, along with a facility near Winnipeg expected to go live later this year.

The data centres are central to BCE’s plan to create what it has said will be the largest AI compute project in Canada, known as Bell AI Fabric. It has said this will help provide services to Canadian businesses and governments when it comes to their AI needs, ranging from strategy and applications development to infrastructure deployment.

Along with Bell AI Fabric, the company launched tech services brand Ateko and cybersecurity brand Bell Cyber last year, forming the anchors of BCE’s pivot toward tech services.

The company reported that AI-powered solutions revenue from those three brands grew 113 per cent year-over-year in its first quarter. That helped drive 9.7 per cent growth in BCE’s total business markets revenue, which also includes income from retail business customers of its telecom services.

“That’s a powerful number, and it reflects the compounding momentum across all three of our AI-powered businesses,” Bibic said.

“Bell AI Fabric is creating considerable value in a very short period of time.”

While the company has declared AI critical to its future, it faced questions Thursday at its annual meeting about the potential drawbacks associated with the technology. One shareholder pointed to “documented hallucinations” that some large language models are still prone to, along with the vast amounts of energy needed to power data centres.

Bibic said Bell is “aware of the risks” when it comes to AI.

“Opportunities are evident, but we understand the risk also concerning the development of a data centre specialized in AI,” he said in French.

“Our development will be super responsible, ecological-wise ... We have a clear policy, really strict, that was announced internally, and we’ll continue to follow it.”

The company’s new data centre in Merritt, B.C., “uses a closed-loop liquid-cooled design that does not draw from municipal water resources,” Bibic said earlier in the day on the conference call.

Focusing on overall value amid discount war

Like Bell’s peers, Bibic said the first quarter was “unusually competitive” as players jostled for customers through promotional offers for cellphone packages.

BCE had a net gain of 16,947 postpaid mobile phone subscribers in its first quarter, compared with a net loss of 9,598 activations during the same period a year earlier. Customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — was 1.34 per cent, up from 1.21 per cent a year ago.

The results reflected that flurry of market activity, the company said.

Bibic said Bell stayed disciplined, noting the company avoided “the most aggressive pricing early in the quarter” but waded in “selectively where we saw longer-term value.” He said Bell prioritized growth of its premium brand “where we have the better ability to increase product intensity” such as by offering fibre internet and streaming content bundles.

“We don’t plan to lead on pricing and we’re going to focus on overall value,” said Bibic, adding there are signs that pricing has begun to stabilize so far in the second quarter.

“We’re going to optimize lifetime economics, but ultimately it is a competitive market. So we have to kind of check and adjust along the way every once in a while.”

Overall, the company’s results for the quarter ended March 31 compared with a profit of $630 million or 68 cents per diluted share for the first three months of 2025.

Operating revenue in the first quarter of 2026 totalled $6.17 billion, up from $5.93 billion a year earlier. The increase came as service revenue totalled $5.35 billion, up from $5.17 billion, while product revenue rose to $818 million, compared with $758 million a year ago.

On an adjusted basis, BCE said it earned 63 cents per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 69 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Scotiabank analyst Maher Yaghi said the results were in line with expectations, noting “slightly better than expected loading metrics offset by continued financial pressures in the Canadian telecom segment.”

“Wireless metrics in Canada continue to show pressure,” he said in a note.

“The company did manage to load more customers than expected, however, the quality of the loading for all competitors we believe was subpar.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2026.

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press

CTV News, BNN Bloomberg, and CP24 are owned by Bell Media, which is a division of BCE.

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