Lightworks, Scotiabank, Sun Life and TELUS launch AI Consortium to jointly build critical AI control infrastructure in Canada
Innovative model brings together some of Canada's largest and most regulated institutions to build shared capabilities to develop, govern and scale AI
TORONTO, July 7, 2026 /CNW/ - Lightworks, Scotiabank, Sun Life and TELUS today announced the launch of the AI Consortium, a trailblazing model bringing together some of Canada's largest and most regulated organizations to build and govern the critical infrastructure needed to implement artificial intelligence (AI) safely, responsibly and at enterprise scale.
Many of the core challenges large, regulated institutions face when implementing AI are shared, from integrating diverse standards, platforms and technologies to maintaining governance, oversight and operational control as AI use scales. The Consortium enables members to pool hands-on engineering, conduct deep research and align interests to jointly build and govern mission-critical AI control systems and intellectual property they would otherwise develop independently, with resulting IP deployed individually and available to members through perpetual-use and ownership rights.
The AI Consortium's flagship program, the Agentic Control Plane (ACP), is already running in production in regulated environments. The ACP gives enterprises the visibility and control needed to manage Agentic AI at scale, across models, agents, users and inference pipelines. It helps support regulatory compliance, maintain operational control and currently processes more than two trillion tokens per month across member organizations.
Future Consortium projects, optional to each member, include:
- AI Operations Center (AI-OC): providing enhanced technical and operational awareness across members to improve performance, resilience and cost management.
- AI Token Exchange (AI-TX): aligning the interests and benefits of collective scale across members, simplifying and expanding access to sovereign AI factories, and delivering capabilities that may not be feasible or efficient for individual institutions to implement alone.
The launch reflects the growing need for coordinated approaches to AI adoption in complex, regulated environments. By bringing together major institutions from banking, telecommunications and insurance, the AI Consortium demonstrates how cross-industry collaboration can help translate AI innovation and safety into real-world technology outcomes while strengthening Canadian competitiveness. The Consortium is open to qualifying organizations ready to build the future of enterprise AI at comparable scale and complexity. To learn more, visit ai-consortium.com.
Quotes
"This marks the unveiling of a vision built over the last 18 months: uniting some of the world's largest and most regulated institutions to advance the adoption of AI at scale. The AI Consortium is not only a technical program but a reimagining of how services, integration, intellectual property, and partnership work in the AI era. By combining execution across organizations facing the same requirements, we achieve a scale and capabilities beyond what could be done alone. This is the first step of many, and we invite others who share this ambition to help build what comes next, together."
- John Painter, Founder and CEO of Lightworks
"AI is scaling rapidly across our organizations, and with agentic systems, real-time control and monitoring have become essential to manage risk. Through the AI Consortium and Agentic Control Plane, we have built a secure foundation prioritizing risk and control up front to ensure that AI is deployed responsibly from the outset. Taking this unique, collaborative approach reflects our institutions' shared commitment to solve common challenges across industries, integrate best-in-class technologies into our most critical systems, and share insights as new risks surface."
- Tim Clark, Global Head and CIO, Scotiabank
"The opportunity of the AI Consortium is to help us move from experimentation to responsible, production-scale impact. As AI and Agentic AI become more deeply embedded in how we work, the ACP will help us keep our Clients at the centre — strengthening the trust they place in us while empowering our people, processes and workflows to deliver better, faster and more meaningful experiences."
- Laura Money, Executive Vice-President and Chief Information and Technology Innovation Officer, Sun Life
"Canada's regulated institutions have been solving the same AI challenges independently for too long – duplicating effort and cost. Through the AI Consortium, we are coming together to develop Canadian-owned AI intellectual property that gives our organizations greater control over our data, operations, and AI capabilities. This is how we own our own destiny and accelerate AI adoption at scale."
- Hesham Fahmy, EVP, COO and CIO, TELUS
About Lightworks
Lightworks is a specialist technology firm enabling highly regulated and security-conscious enterprises to execute mission-critical AI deployments, accelerate modernization initiatives and deliver complex transformation programs at scale. The firm operates across North America, Singapore and Australia, serving clients in financial services, telecommunications, insurance and government. As the Managing Founding Member of the AI Consortium, Lightworks spearheads the mission behind engineering mission-critical AI control systems and for the world foundational institutions.
For more information, visit light.works
About Scotiabank
Scotiabank's vision is to be our clients' most trusted financial partner and deliver sustainable, profitable growth. Guided by our purpose: "for every future," we help our clients, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products, and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With assets of approximately $1.5 trillion (as at April 30, 2026), Scotiabank is one of the largest banks in North America by assets, and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:BNS) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:BNS). For more information, please visit http://www.scotiabank.com and follow us on X @Scotiabank.
About Sun Life
Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing asset management, wealth, insurance and health solutions to individual and institutional Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of March 31, 2026, Sun Life had total assets under management of $1.58 trillion. For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com.
Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.
About TELUS
TELUS (TSX:T, NYSE:TU) is a world-leading communications technology company operating in more than 45 countries and generating over $20 billion in annual revenue with more than 17 million customer connections through our advanced suite of broadband services for consumers, businesses and the public sector. We are committed to leveraging our technology to enable remarkable human outcomes. TELUS is passionate about putting our customers and communities first, leading the way globally in client service excellence and social capitalism. TELUS Health is enhancing approximately 170 million lives across 200 countries and territories through innovative preventive medicine and well-being technologies. TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods utilizes digital technologies and data insights to optimize the connection between producers and consumers. TELUS Digital specializes in digital customer experiences and future-focused digital transformations that deliver value for their global clients. Guided by our enduring 'give where we live' philosophy, TELUS continues to invest in initiatives that support education, health and community well-being. In 2023, we launched the TELUS Student Bursary, which strives to ensure that every young person in Canada who wants a postsecondary education has the opportunity to pursue one. To date, the program has distributed over $6 million in bursaries to 2,000 students and counting. Since 2000, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed $1.85 billion in cash, in-kind contributions, time and programs, including 2.5 million days of service—earning TELUS the distinction of the world's most giving company.
For more information, visit telus.com
SOURCE Lightworks
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