The IT Nerd

I have three 2026 Predictions from Roger Brulotte, CEO of Leaseweb Canada and they are as follows:

Prediction 1: AI Adoption Becomes Mandatory, Driving a Surge in GPU Demand and New Canadian Sovereign AI Infrastructure

“In 2026, AI stops being something companies experiment with and becomes something they cannot operate without. Last year many organizations were still standing at a distance, watching early adopters figure things out. This year the conversation shifts entirely. AI becomes essential for internal productivity, external services, and even competitive survival. That is going to create a major jump in demand for Canadian GPU infrastructure, especially for companies trying to train or fine-tune their own models. A lot of medium-sized and smaller businesses are going to realize fast that they simply cannot train modern AI workloads on their existing on-prem environments without blowing up their capex.

We’re also seeing a new pattern emerge. Labs, universities, and R&D teams are building and training models, then handing the commercialized version back to the customer through a licensing model or revenue-share arrangement. That shift speeds up AI adoption but also pushes organizations toward Canadian sovereign infrastructure, because they want assurance that their data and training environments stay within national borders. With the federal government investing heavily in local AI infrastructure and sovereign cloud, 2026 becomes the year when Canadian companies start saying not just ‘we want AI’ but ‘we need AI inside Canada.’”

Prediction 2: Organizations Finally Move Away from the Misconception That Hyperscalers Guarantee Sovereignty and Continuity

“One of the biggest misconceptions the industry sheds in 2026 is the belief that putting everything in a hyperscaler automatically solves compliance, sovereignty, and business continuity. Canadian companies are starting to understand that hyperscalers were never designed to guarantee Canadian data stays in Canada. Between legal exposure, jurisdictional questions, and the very real desire to keep national data under national control, executives are rethinking long-held assumptions. The news cycle has played a big role. Everyone is seeing outages, policy changes, and security incidents that hit thousands of tenants at once, and they are asking harder questions about risk.

As that awareness grows, diversification becomes the new best practice. Instead of trusting that a single global provider will protect them, companies are looking at hybrid models with a mix of colocation, Canadian infrastructure as a service, and selective use of hyperscalers for the workloads that actually warrant it. They want partners who pick up the phone. They want providers who understand sovereignty rules and who can build infrastructure tailored to their exact needs instead of forcing predefined catalogue options. In 2026, the industry moves past the idea that ‘no one gets fired for choosing a hyperscaler’ and recognizes that the safer long-term choice is diversification.”

Prediction 3: Hybrid and Multi-Provider Strategies Replace Status Quo Thinking as Companies Seek Flexibility, Cost Control, and Choice

“The most important advice for 2026 is simple. Stop repeating last year’s plan. The companies that future-proof their infrastructure are the ones that stop doing status quo renewals and start exploring the wider market. We meet too many teams who lift and shift everything into one cloud only to discover that the exact infrastructure they needed isn’t available, or the price structure doesn’t match their usage pattern. Once they are in, they start buying workarounds, and suddenly the cost balloons far beyond what they expected. The lesson organizations take into 2026 is that you need partners who ask what problem you are trying to solve before they tell you what to buy.

Likewise, companies are getting smarter about how they evaluate providers. They want flexibility, custom design options, and the ability to scale without being locked into one commercial model. Moreover, they want a partner who can support them not only in their home region but as they expand into new markets. And last but certainly not least, they want real human support – not just a portal. The winning infrastructure strategies in 2026 will be hybrid, diversified, and designed around actual workloads instead of one-size-fits-all catalogs. The only ones that will remain cost-effective, resilient, and competitive will be those that embrace that flexibility.”