Google Cloud Canada grows with focus on AI and sovereignty

Three months after Farsad Nasseri was named Managing Director and Country Manager of Google Cloud Canada, the cloud technology giant is making it clear: its ambitions in Canada are only getting bolder.

Google has operated in Canada for more than two decades, first opening its doors in 2001 with just one employee. Since then, the company has built a vast Canadian footprint, with thousands of employees spread across offices in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary and Waterloo. It has also established two Google Cloud regions – Toronto and Montreal – to support data sovereignty and local processing requirements.

"Google is very much committed to Canada," Nasseri said in an interview. "We have engineering resources, research resources – including DeepMind offices in Montreal and Toronto – and teams across both cloud and Chrome."

Nasseri brings a unique perspective to the role, having been the very first Google Cloud employee in Canada over a decade ago. "Ten years ago is when I started with our cloud business in Canada," he said. "Since then, we've gone from serving tech firms to working with regulated industries like TELUS, Scotiabank, and Nova Scotia Health."

That evolution reflects a broader shift in the Canadian tech landscape, where sovereign cloud capabilities, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence are increasingly top of mind. According to Nasseri, the demand for data sovereignty has grown rapidly in recent years.

"Sovereignty has definitely become a much bigger topic," he said. "We've been talking to customers for the past three to four years about what we call assured workloads – trusted cloud solutions that use software controls to give people full sovereignty over their data."

In practice, this means meeting unique requirements from sectors such as healthcare, finance and telecommunications – including offering local customer support, in-country data storage, and encryption key management that prevents Google from ever accessing a customer's data.

Most recently, Google Cloud has expanded its sovereign AI capabilities by enabling its flagship generative AI model, Gemini, to be deployed in air-gapped infrastructure. "Customers can now get Google Cloud with all of its APIs and automation in a box – fully sovereign to them," Nasseri said.

This level of control is particularly important for Canadian public sector organisations. Nova Scotia Health, for example, recently rolled out a new AI-powered service on its website, allowing citizens to ask questions about healthcare services and conditions. "To have a province in Canada choose that technology and go forward with it is a proud moment for us," Nasseri said.

Much of this success, he explained, stems from a deliberate strategy to start with anchor clients. "We decided, because we were third to market, we needed to learn how our largest customers would use cloud," he said. "So we focused early efforts on companies like Shopify, TELUS, and Scotiabank – and now we're scaling that knowledge across other industries."

While Google Cloud doesn't disclose regional market share figures, Nasseri described its growth in Canada as "tremendous."

AI, of course, plays a central role in that trajectory. "AI is not just a product that we offer," he said. "We're injecting it across all parts of our portfolio – from data analytics in BigQuery, to cybersecurity, to Kubernetes."

That includes Google's new AgentSpace platform, which has seen a surge of interest in Canada. The tool integrates Google Search, pre-trained AI models and data connectors into a ready-to-use productivity assistant. "The reaction to AgentSpace has been better than anything else I've experienced in my 10 years here," Nasseri said.

To support this growth, Google Cloud has invested heavily in partner training and education. "We focus a lot on partners – they're the biggest enabler of our growth," Nasseri explained. "We work closely with GSIs like Deloitte, Accenture and PwC, as well as boutique firms that specialise in areas like data analytics or cybersecurity."

Education also extends to the broader market. In just the first quarter of the year, Google Cloud delivered around 130 presentations on AgentSpace in Canada and hosted dozens of customer workshops. "We feel a responsibility to bring up the average understanding of these new technologies across the country," he said.

That sense of national duty was evident throughout the conversation. Nasseri's excitement about recent AI advances – particularly the launch of the agent development kit and protocols like MCP – is tempered by a focus on inclusivity and practical value.

"The Canadian consumer, I believe, wants a solution that helps them leverage AI – not just raw access to models," he said. "And that's where we've been putting our energy."

Looking ahead, Nasseri believes Canada is poised to lead in areas like AI-enabled healthcare and sovereign cloud adoption. "We're committed to continuing to support Canadian customers – whether they're startups, public sector agencies or large enterprises – with the best tools, expertise and infrastructure available," he said.

He paused, then added: "As a Canadian, it's genuinely exciting to help shape the future of technology in this country."