Shawinigan’s AI automation agency.

Shawinigan is the cradle of Canadian hydroelectricity. Harnessing the Saint-Maurice falls in 1899 turned it into one of the country's first industrial towns, with Canadian firsts in aluminium (1901), carborundum (1908), and cellophane (1932). Hydro-Quebec still runs Shawinigan-2, the oldest hydro station operating in Quebec, and the city wears the name Cite de l'energie with pride. That heritage left a workforce fluent in heavy process, shift operations, and engineering discipline.

The 20th-century anchors have largely closed: the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter wound down its potroom in 2014, and the Belgo and Laurentide paper mills are shut. But aluminium did not leave. Shawinigan Aluminium inc., part of Groupe Sotrem-Maltech, took over the historic site and now transforms more than 90,000 tonnes of aluminium a year into export billets, with a recycling centre added in 2019. Manufacturers like Kongsberg Automotive, HDI Technologies, and Metal Dupont keep a working factory floor in the city, and Taiga Motors assembles electric powersports here.

The bigger story is reinvention. DigiHub Shawinigan, Quebec's third digital hub, anchors a deliberate pivot into technology: an incubator and accelerator spanning digital entertainment, e-health, digital heritage, and Industry 4.0, now backed by a high-performance AI and quantum compute capability. Tourism built on La Cite de l'energie, a stable healthcare base in the CIUSSS de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Quebec, and Cegep de Shawinigan round out an economy rebuilding itself after the post-2007 closures.

For Shawinigan operators, automation is how a smaller post-industrial city competes for talent and margin. A metal-products plant, an EV assembler, a clinic, or a DigiHub startup that automates documentation, scheduling, and customer response reclaims hours its lean team cannot spare. Every deployment runs in Quebec French, with Canadian data residency and Law 25 plus Bill 96 compliance treated as table stakes, not afterthoughts.