Fortinet opens $30 million cybersecurity hub in downtown Calgary

Global cybersecurity giant Fortinet celebrated the grand opening of their new $30 million cybersecurity hub in the downtown core on Wednesday morning.

The 70-year-old building on 505 2 Street S.W. was purchased by the company about 20 months ago and needed a lot of work to house their teams and prepare for future expansion, said Fortinet vice president for western Canada Gordon Phillips.

“We’re actually building a Generation 2 data centre, so that’s really a big piece of that expense (and) obviously buying the building was another big piece of the cost,” Phillips said. “But we’re also building on the top floor around our customer experience centre with a big focus on operational technology and critical infrastructure, protection and defense is a big piece of that as well.”

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It will be a space where people can come in and work on the actual physical equipment to protect critical Canadian infrastructure, he said.

Another major component of the building is the training facility on the second floor.

“That’s a big, big piece of what we’re doing is upskilling workers, making people more cybersecurity aware and offering some training for our customers as well,” he said.

Fortinet has a large campus in Burnaby and its customer support development and training institute is located in Ottawa.

In the next 18 months the company plans to double their employees from 70 to 140.

Fortinet has some very large clients based in Calgary and it is the headquarters for critical infrastructure and operational technology, he said.

Companies like Garmin in Cochrane and aerospace companies like Lufthansa help facilitate that growth in the tech space, Phillips said.

“But also, you see the energy changing in Calgary to become that tech forward place,” he said. “We’re always known as an energy hub. I think what we’re seeing from growth on the tech side is really interesting.”

The opening of this new building is an important milestone for the company, said senior vice president of international sales and service Pedro Paixao.