Weytkp. Bonjour. Hello everyone,
Summer has a different rhythm and ideas have room to breathe. Thoughts that might otherwise be rushed begin to connect and evolve. Many of the reflections in this week’s update came from those quieter moments that add colour to the community conversations I continue to have on campus and beyond.
One observation that holds true across these moments: community relationships built sustainably with a longer term view sits at the core of all conversations about responsible technology. Yes, governance and innovation are both important, but lasting progress depends on trust, collaboration and people learning together. This connects to one of TRU’s core values: Community-Mindedness (Me7 Plúl̓k̓wt es Knucwentwécw-kt). It reminds us that mutual benefit guides us to connect meaningfully with the people and communities we serve.
Since my last update
Thinking beyond the answer
I’d like to share a recent article in Times Higher Education. It argues that as AI makes it easier to produce polished written work, our ability to communicate ideas clearly becomes an even more important way to demonstrate what we know. Communication becomes the differentiator. Explaining a concept, responding to questions and engaging in thoughtful discussion all require a depth of understanding that AI can’t provide on our behalf.
It reminded me of something @Robert Diab (Faculty of Law) wrote in the Globe and Mail earlier this year: Good writing isn’t simply about producing a document. It’s about communication: exercising judgment, weighing priorities and making decisions.
As AI becomes part of more aspects of our work and learning, those human capabilities become even more valuable. Curiosity, judgment and the confidence to stand behind our thinking are qualities that technology can support and augment, but never replace.
Learning through understanding
Over the past few weeks, conversations and demonstrations about AI infrastructure have continued in our community. It’s understandable that data centres receive careful scrutiny from the communities where they’re built as historically, many data centres created around the world didn’t always reflect the environmental standards or community values people expect. They’re often noisy, consume a lot of water, draw energy from a dirty grid, and add limited community benefit. The facility being developed on TRU’s campus is different. The purpose and design of the facility is not about consumer AI deployment focused on image generation, chatbots, or similar use cases. The TRU site is being developed to advance Canadian research capacity through partnerships with TRU, Simon Fraser University and Queen’s University, with the goal of building top-tier research compute. Approximately 50 per cent of the capacity is intended for academic research, with the remaining capacity supporting sovereign enterprise AI services through the leading Canadian LLM provider, Cohere, including applications for government and other protected industries.
From an infrastructure standpoint, the facility is different from the historic builds that have left environmental sustainability as an afterthought. The AI data centre being built at TRU is considered small to medium-scale. The facility is sized to act as an AI compute and fabric node rather than a massive, hyperscale or megawatt-heavy data storage center. The TRU-based facility is specifically designed with community integration and sustainability in mind, including mass timber construction, reuse-focused materials, and a district energy approach with the capacity for waste heat to be repurposed. Importantly, the system is fully air-cooled within a closed-loop environment, meaning there is no municipal water use or ongoing water draw. The compute is liquid-cooled at the chip level, which significantly reduces the need for large fan systems, and the building and mechanical systems are engineered to dampen sound such that it is not perceptible beyond the property line. The only notable intermittent noise source would be a backup generator during a power outage, which is enclosed and attenuated to approximately 70 dB at close range (equivalent to the ambient noise of a busy office, a running washing machine, a dishwasher, or a vacuum cleaner).
Universities have an important role to play in moments like these. We should be places where people can ask questions, respectfully challenge one another, and explore complex issues together. The more we understand how a system works — from how something is built and powered to what it’s designed to do and the trade-offs involved — the more equipped we are to make better decisions. I believe we have a responsibility to create opportunities for our community to engage in these conversations, to deepen our understanding, and develop our own values and perspectives.
This perspective continues to shape the direction of TRU horaizon. Within our Learning pillar, we plan to deepen our partnership with the Sustainability Office so that questions of climate, infrastructure and responsible AI can be explored together. It comes back to community-mindedness: listening to one another, engaging thoughtfully with complex ideas and building shared understanding in service of our communities. Being a leader in climate action and being a leader in responsible AI aren’t in tension. From my perspective, they go hand in hand, and TRU is in a great position to lead by example.
horaizon in focus
Over the past few weeks, the conversation around responsible and applied AI has expanded across campus and into our broader community.
MP Frank Caputo’s Economic Council
I was invited, alongside leaders at Telus and Bell, to present at MP Frank Caputo’s Economic Council, where business, labour and community leaders discussed workforce readiness, reskilling and lifelong learning.
What energized me the most were the stories. Many of the people doing innovative work with AI don’t come from technology backgrounds. They started with a challenge they wanted to solve, a willingness to experiment and the curiosity to keep learning. It was a good reminder that a challenge that needs solving, not technology, is the starting point.
It was encouraging to see how strongly TRU’s values-first approach to responsible AI resonated with that group and how much interest there is in working together to build AI capacity across our region. I’m looking forward to continuing that thread in future conversations.
City of Kamloops
I sat down with Byron McCorkell (Chief Administrative Officer), David Hallinan (Director Corporate Services) and Kuldeep Bath (IT Manager) from the City this week. What came through was a shared orientation toward responsible and applied AI for our communities. One idea that kept surfacing: the difference between incremental improvement and system redesign. Some processes have accumulated layers over time, and the question may not be how to make these processes faster, but whether they still serve the people they were built for. Good systems design starts with the people at the centre, not the process. That’s a principle TRU and the City seem to share.
Associate and assistant deans
I also had the pleasure of meeting with associate and assistant deans from across TRU. Thank you to @Desmond MacMillan, @Elizabeth Reimer, @Jijun Gao, @Tracy Hoot and @Susie Safford for such an open and thoughtful discussion.
Several themes emerged. People are looking for trusted guidance in a rapidly changing AI landscape, practical learning opportunities that complement ongoing conversations about teaching and academic integrity, and better ways to connect and learn from one another across disciplines. Capacity also remains a challenge, reinforcing the importance of making learning approachable, accessible and community-driven.
The group agreed to continue the conversation and explore how TRU horaizon can support those needs.
Til next time
Although these connections happened in different places and with different groups, they pointed toward many of the same priorities: practical learning, meaningful partnerships, trusted guidance and opportunities for people to learn from one another. Me7 Plúl̓k̓wt es Knucwentwécw-kt.
Those insights are helping shape the next phase of TRU horaizon, from the development of our community-based AI fundamentals program to new opportunities for collaboration. Over the coming months, we’ll continue these conversations with partners across TRU and beyond. I look forward to meeting more new voices to help shape where we go next. After all, the best learning communities usually begin the same way: a simple conversation between curious people who want to explore an idea together.
As always, I’d love to hear from you. Please continue sharing your ideas, thoughts and feedback to horaizon@tru.ca.
Kukwstsétselp. Merci. Thank you,
Andrea Li
Special Advisor to the President on AI