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Ottawa Puts Up to $50M Behind a Digital Twin of N.B.'s Forests

The federal money is a conditional grant to the Northern Hardwoods Research Institute and ResearchNB for an $86-million digital forestry centre, not an open fund, and it comes three weeks before the Nackawic pulp mill goes idle.

A map of New Brunswick's forest stands overlays its digital twin, and an amber logging truck is routed to a mill with a full load. A readout shows up to $50M federal toward an $86M centre.

Ottawa is offering up to $50 million to build the New Brunswick Strategic Innovation Centre in Digital Forestry. The centre is a software and data project meant to show where the province's wood is, which mill should get it, and how it gets there. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson announced the money in Fredericton on Wednesday.

The Northern Hardwoods Research Institute (NHRI) in Edmundston leads the project with ResearchNB. Natural Resources Canada values it at about $86 million. The federal share is "conditional, subject to project approval and pending final due diligence," the department said. According to The Canadian Press, provincial Natural Resources Minister John Herron said most of the rest will come from the province. CBC reports that ResearchNB and the Department of Natural Resources will cover that remainder between them.

What the centre is supposed to build

The federal release describes a pilot for "digitalizing the forest sector." It would help the industry "identify, track and use fibre resources across the supply chain" and match wood to "facilities' specific manufacturing requirements."

ResearchNB's pre-budget brief to the Commons finance committee asked for exactly this $50 million over five years. It gives the most detailed list of what the money is meant to build:

  • AI-enabled forest management, predictive modelling and real-time decision support
  • province-scale digital twin infrastructure for testing, validating and commercializing new technology
  • dual-use technology with uses in forestry, advanced manufacturing, supply-chain monitoring and defence
  • micro-credentials and digital-skills training for rural, Indigenous and industry workers
  • wildfire, biodiversity and climate-impact modelling
  • data interoperability across the sector

The brief points to assets the province already has, including province-wide LiDAR data and advanced forest inventory systems.

At the announcement, Hodgson said the digital twin would let foresters simulate harvesting regimes, reforestation and wildfire plans "in a digital world first." Herron described central log-truck dispatch as an "Uber in the forest." NHRI executive director Gaétan Pelletier put a number on that piece. He told CBC that about 40 per cent of the 200 to 300 log trucks on New Brunswick roads run empty. Centralizing their dispatch, he said, could save the industry about $25 million a year. In the federal release, Pelletier cites a 2024 analysis by the consulting firm AFRY that found a digitalization strategy for the entire sector was "instrumental to our transformation and resilience." The release does not say which sectors AFRY studied.

Who can get at the money

Nobody can apply for it directly. The $50 million is a grant to one project, not a program with an intake, and neither government has published the centre's governance, procurement or partner rules.

That leaves an open question for the province's forestry software sector. Fredericton's Remsoft sells forest-planning and optimization software worldwide and has bought three forestry-data companies since early 2025. Neither the release nor the coverage names any private technology vendor. Whether the centre builds its own systems, buys them, or licenses them from local firms is one of the things project approval will have to settle.

There is one door open now, and it is small. ResearchNB's Modernizing New Brunswick's Forestry Sector call funds research that uses digital innovation to make the sector more productive and competitive. It offers up to $50,000 for up to 24 months, and applications close at 11:59 a.m. ADT on Oct. 27. The principal investigator must work at an eligible institution, so a company cannot be the lead applicant. Every application needs at least one partner letter, though, and forest companies, wood manufacturers, woodlot owner groups and Indigenous organizations all qualify as partners. Decisions are expected Dec. 18.

The mill down the road

The Telegraph-Journal's John Chilibeck framed the announcement against Nackawic. The AV Nackawic pulp mill shuts down on Nov. 4. On Sept. 17, AV Group NB announced a "temporary idling" of the plant, which employs about 350 people and can make about 190,000 tonnes a year of dissolving-grade pulp. The company cited market conditions and gave no restart date. Unifor says 228 of its members will be out of work. The union notes the mill belongs to India's Aditya Birla Group, which it accuses of investing in mills outside Canada instead of Nackawic. The province says several departments, Opportunities NB among them, are putting together a response plan.

AV Group is also one of the four forest companies that helped found NHRI, along with J.D. Irving, Groupe Savoie and Acadian Timber, according to ACOA.

Asked by Brunswick News whether Ottawa could keep the mill open, Hodgson pointed to the federal forestry hotline and liquidity and tariff-relief tools. He said the owner had decided "that doesn't work." He also said governments can't direct a private owner on what to make. The centre does not change that. Its pitch is better fibre data and cheaper logistics for the mills that keep running, and the release does not mention Nackawic.

Hodgson said further details of a national forest sector strategy will come in Budget 2026. The Canadian Press reports the budget is due next month. Until project approval and due diligence are done, the $50 million is still a commitment, not money in hand.

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