What is RBC's technology stack?
RBC runs a hybrid stack: its own data centers and mainframe, a private cloud, and public cloud for workloads that need scale. Its head of cloud engineering said in November 2023 that the bank owns its datacenters and keeps well-running legacy systems there, while the data it holds in the public cloud had doubled every year for three years and it is a heavy user of Amazon Web Services' Kubernetes. For AI it built a private cloud in 2020 with Red Hat OpenShift and NVIDIA DGX systems. The data and AI layer is Lumina, built with its research institute RBC Borealis, which collects more than one billion business events and can process up to 10 billion transactions per minute; ATOM, RBC's proprietary foundation model disclosed on July 29, 2025, is part of it. Generative AI comes through Cohere's North for Banking, announced on January 9, 2025, and through the Aiden platform in capital markets, built on NVIDIA AI Enterprise. CEO Dave McKay said in January 2026 that technology spending reaches about $6 billion per year. Naim Kazmi has led Technology & Operations since February 2026.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Data as of Nov 11, 2026 · RBC profile updated Nov 1, 2026 · 24 sources cited on this page · 141 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
What are the layers of RBC's technology stack?
As RBC and its vendors describe them. RBC has not published an architecture diagram, and the sources below do not give a count of data centers or name the vendor of its core banking system.
| Layer | What is on the record | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | 'Our global data centres, mainframe and hybrid cloud network' serve application teams; a private cloud in RBC's own data centres plus public cloud infrastructure from third-party vendors; operations described as fully software-defined | RBC Infrastructure and Operations page | Undated (retrieved November 11, 2026)[2] |
| Public cloud use | Head of cloud engineering Vinh Tran: the amount of data moved to the public cloud doubled every year over three years; a heavy user of Amazon Web Services' Kubernetes, with containers preferred to virtual machines; cloud platforms serve more than 5,000 application teams | Waters Technology (reprint on rbc.com) | November 2023[1] |
| What stays on premises | Legacy systems that run well on virtual machines or containers and need no extra scale stay put. Tran: 'We own the datacenters'. Security, he said, is 'probably 80% of my job' | Waters Technology (reprint on rbc.com) | November 2023[1] |
| AI private cloud | An in-house AI computing platform built by RBC and Borealis AI with Red Hat and NVIDIA, running on Red Hat OpenShift and NVIDIA's DGX AI computing systems | RBC release | July 23, 2020[3] |
| Data and AI platform | Lumina collects and curates more than one billion business events and can analyze up to 10 billion transactions per minute; PYMNTS reports it runs on one of the largest private-sector graphics processing unit clusters in Canada | RBC Capital Markets; RBC release; PYMNTS | October 8, 2025; March 23, 2026[4][5][10] |
| ATOM | Proprietary foundation model (Asynchronous Temporal Model) created by RBC Borealis and trained on large-scale financial datasets including billions of client financial transactions; part of the Lumina data platform | RBC release | July 29, 2025[5] |
| Generative AI workspace | North for Banking, co-developed with Cohere, integrates with RBC's and Cohere's own proprietary foundation models and with RBC's internal platforms | RBC release | January 9, 2025[6] |
| Capital markets AI | The Aiden platform is built with NVIDIA AI Enterprise on an AI factory that uses on-premise and hybrid cloud infrastructure; it uses the NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit and NVIDIA Nemotron models deployed via NVIDIA NIM | NVIDIA case study | Undated[7] |
| Tools for technologists | More than 10,000 technologists use AI and genAI tools in tech infrastructure, cloud engineering, digital, cyber security and app development; RBC Assist, an in-house developed genAI tool, is being rolled out to employees | RBC careers page | Undated (retrieved November 11, 2026)[11] |
| Acquisition conversion | HSBC Bank Canada's customers and employees were moved onto RBC's platforms over a single long weekend: 12,000 technical steps, five rehearsals and more than 780,000 clients added | The Globe and Mail | April 4, 2024[12] |
| Technology spend | CEO Dave McKay told a Davos session that total technology spending reaches about $6 billion per year, with roughly $2 billion devoted to initiatives including application development and modernization; American Banker wrote that RBC 'spends more than 5 billion Canadian dollars a year on technology' | PYMNTS; American Banker | January 20, 2026; March 19, 2026[8][13] |
Who runs technology at RBC?
On February 18, 2026 RBC split AI from the technology function. Bruce Ross, who spent 12 years as Group Head of RBC Technology & Operations, became Group Head, AI. Naim Kazmi, most recently EVP, Commercial, Core Banking & Payments Technology, became Group Head, Technology & Operations and joined the Group Executive; RBC says he was the technology lead for the integration of HSBC Bank Canada.[9]
RBC Borealis, the research institute launched in 2016, supplies much of the AI layer: American Banker reports that with the help of its architects, engineers and scientists RBC rolled out Lumina, an enterprise data and AI platform, and Aiden, an electronic trading platform that uses deep reinforcement learning.[11][13]
The cloud program treats public cloud as a tool for scale rather than a destination. Tran told Waters Technology in November 2023 that RBC delayed moving data to the public cloud until the security capabilities were proven, and that 'We're finding more and more opportunities to integrate public and private cloud'.[1]
Not on the record in these sources: the names of every public cloud provider RBC uses (only Amazon Web Services' Kubernetes is named), the number of data centres, and the vendor of the core banking system.[1][2]
What does the RBC profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the RBC AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Nov 1, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 38 dated moves, 16 use cases and 50 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATOM-based retail credit adjudication | ATOM supports credit adjudication using transaction histories and non-traditional data, including extending credit to clients with less credit history such as newcomers; in August 2026 RBC cited improved approval rates, faster decisions and increased client acquisition. | In production | [5][14] |
| North for Banking with Cohere | Enterprise generative AI platform co-developed with Cohere, integrating RBC's and Cohere's foundation models and RBC's internal platforms. | Announced | [6][15] |
| Aiden: electronic trading and AidenResearch | Aiden began as a deep reinforcement learning electronic trading platform and now includes AidenResearch, agents that generate earnings content, summarise calls and give real-time access to filings, built with Borealis AI on NVIDIA AI Enterprise and used by more than 8,000 Capital Markets employees; AidenBanker, for pitchbooks and meeting preparation, is in development. RBC analysts cover about 1,700 companies, up from about 1,500 in 2023, with a goal of 2,500. | In production | [7][13][16] |
| Aiden QuickTakes and AidenBanker | QuickTakes drafts research reports up to 95% faster; coverage per analyst rose from 14.5 names in 2024 to over 17.5, with 22 targeted. AidenBanker handles pitchbook assembly, meeting preparation and note-taking, and is being scaled to every managing director and extended to corporate banking. | In production | [17][18] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 6, 2026 | Evident AI Index 2026: third of 50, fifth year in a row | RBC is #1 in Canada and #3 globally; top ten on all four pillars, with Talent up four places to 8th and Leadership second. RBC cites more than 72,000 employees on RBC Assist or Aiden, 10,000 technologists on other AI tools and a membership of the FINOS AI Fund. | [17][19] |
| Sep 16, 2026 | McKay and Cohere's Aidan Gomez discuss AI rules and sovereignty | At the Milken Institute Global Dialogues in Toronto McKay describes product development cycles shrinking from years to months and argues AI effects on work are reallocation and retraining rather than straightforward elimination. | [20] |
| Aug 13, 2026 | IDC CIO Award for AI-assisted credit underwriting | RBC's retail credit underwriting programme, built on ATOM, is recognised; early results include improved approval rates, faster decisions and increased client acquisition. | [14] |
| Jun 1, 2026 | Capital Markets AI team: over 20 people, $19.8 million budget | American Banker profiles Grubert, whose team of over 20 people spans engineering, product, strategy and governance, and lists NVIDIA, Databricks, Cohere and Anthropic as partners extending Aiden. | [16] |
| May 29, 2026 | Vancouver hub expansion tied to AI plans | RBC says its Vancouver banking and innovation hub will grow from 350 to 600 employees by end-2026 and to 1,000 jobs in British Columbia by 2029, with growth in its Vancouver Borealis team; Bruce Ross says the Vancouver teams will help accelerate its AI ambitions. | [21] |
| May 28, 2026 | Q2 2026 call: 200-plus models, token use up 500% | McKay reports more than 200 AI models, a more than 500% rise in LLM token usage since 2025, and AI contributions to over 24 million lines of code and over 120,000 code reviews. | [22] |
| May 4, 2026 | Grubert names Aiden's partners | FinAi News quotes Grubert saying Aiden was built with NVIDIA and Anthropic, with a Cohere-designed interface, is deployed to all 8,000 Capital Markets staff with 8,000 real-time data sources, and that thousands of business-built agents are in production. | [18] |
| Mar 31, 2026 | Ross sets out AI Group pipeline | In a Traders Magazine interview Bruce Ross names NOMI Insights, Aiden, Lumina and ATOM as products in production, lists credit modelling, code development, fraud, cybersecurity and quality testing as pipeline areas, and cites more than 35,000 RBC Assist users, 9,000 Capital Markets Aiden users and 4,000 developers on generative AI tools. | [23] |
| Mar 23, 2026 | AidenResearch agents and Lumina compute described | PYMNTS reports AidenResearch agents let one analyst cover up to 50 companies instead of 15, document processing capacity is up tenfold and Lumina runs on one of Canada's largest private-sector GPU clusters, second only to the federal government's. | [10][7] |
| Feb 18, 2026 | AI Group created under Bruce Ross | A new team reporting to the CEO becomes an AI accelerator; Naim Kazmi succeeds Ross as Group Head, Technology & Operations. The release cites almost 27,000 RBC Assist users and 8,000 Aiden users. | [9][13] |
| Jan 20, 2026 | Davos remark: C$6 billion technology spend | PYMNTS and The Globe and Mail report McKay told a January 2026 Davos session that RBC spends C$6 billion a year on technology, C$2 billion of it on modernising operations and developing AI, and that ATOM-based underwriting lets RBC lend to more clients without changing risk guardrails. | [8][24] |
| Jul 29, 2025 | ATOM foundation model disclosed | RBC announces ATOM, built by RBC Borealis on billions of client transactions and part of Lumina; first used in 2023 and already behind several products, including credit adjudication. | [5] |
Does RBC use the public cloud?
Yes, alongside its own infrastructure. RBC describes a hybrid cloud: a private cloud in its own data centres plus public cloud from third-party vendors. Its head of cloud engineering said in November 2023 that data in the public cloud had doubled every year for three years and that RBC is a heavy user of Amazon Web Services' Kubernetes.
What is RBC's Lumina platform?
Lumina is RBC's enterprise data and AI platform, built with its research institute RBC Borealis. RBC says it collects and curates more than one billion business events and can process up to 10 billion transactions per minute, and its ATOM foundation model, disclosed on July 29, 2025, is part of the platform.
Which AI models does RBC use?
Its own and partners'. ATOM is RBC's proprietary foundation model trained on billions of client financial transactions. North for Banking, co-developed with Cohere since January 2025, integrates RBC's and Cohere's foundation models, and the Aiden platform in capital markets runs NVIDIA Nemotron models through NVIDIA NIM, according to NVIDIA.
How much does RBC spend on technology?
CEO Dave McKay told a Davos session in January 2026 that RBC's total technology spending reaches about $6 billion per year, with roughly $2 billion going to initiatives including application development and modernization, PYMNTS reported. American Banker put the figure at more than 5 billion Canadian dollars a year in March 2026. RBC's careers site says more than 10,000 technologists use AI and generative AI tools in their work.
Who leads technology at RBC?
Naim Kazmi, Group Head, Technology & Operations since February 18, 2026, previously EVP for Commercial, Core Banking & Payments Technology. His predecessor of 12 years, Bruce Ross, moved to lead the new AI Group as Group Head, AI. Vinh Tran was head of cloud engineering as of November 2023.
- RBC outlines hybrid cloud strategy, eyes genAI use cases (Waters Technology, November 2023; reprint hosted by RBC)
- Infrastructure and Operations at RBC (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-11)
- Royal Bank of Canada and Borealis AI announce new AI private cloud platform, developed with Red Hat and NVIDIA
- RBC ranks #1 in Canada and #3 globally for AI maturity
- RBC's proprietary AI foundation model for financial services aims to enhance personalized client experience
- RBC and Cohere partner to develop the next generation of highly secure generative AI solutions for financial services
- RBC Capital Markets Advances Research and Banking Capabilities With Agentic AI (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-05)
- Davos Signals a Disciplined Era for AI in Banking and FinTech
- RBC creates new AI Group to help bring top AI opportunities to market
- RBC Estimates $1B in Revenue Lift by Embedding AI in Core Banking
- Preparing our workforce for a future with AI (Tech @ RBC; undated page, retrieved 2026-11-11)
- RBC's purchase of HSBC Bank Canada accompanied by a complex technological feat
- RBC says its focus on AI is paying dividends
- RBC wins IDC CIO Awards Canada 2026 for AI-driven credit underwriting transformation
- Royal Bank of Canada Annual Report 2025 (EX-99.1, filed with the SEC)
- #44 At RBC, Bobby Grubert is moving AI from a tool to a collaborator
- RBC maintains top three leadership position globally for AI maturity in financial services
- 5 questions with RBC's Head of AI and Digital Innovation Bobby Grubert (FinAi News article PDF)
- JPMorganChase still tops AI ranking as big-bank lead widens
- Canada's AI potential: On sovereignty, safety and regulation
- RBC announces expansion of Vancouver banking and innovation hub
- ROYAL BANK OF CANADA (RY.TO) Q2 FY2026 earnings call transcript
- RBC Prepares for the AI Era (interview with Bruce Ross)
- How the promise of AI is taking hold at Canada's biggest banks
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