OpenAI GPT-5.6, GPT-6 and GPT-6.1 now available on AWS Bedrock from Canada

AWS has extended OpenAI's latest models to Canadian Bedrock customers. Organizations in Canada (Central) and Canada West (Calgary) can call GPT-5.6, GPT-6 and GPT-6.1 using cross-Region inference. Requests are routed through inference profiles, with customers configuring IAM permissions and invoking the models via the Responses, Chat Completions or Converse APIs.

Cross-Region inference lets AWS serve models from regions where capacity exists while presenting a local entry point. For regulated Canadian buyers in finance, public sector and healthcare, the questions are where data is processed and how that maps to their compliance requirements. The documentation on inference profiles is meant to help them make that call.

This follows the broader arrival of OpenAI models on Bedrock, including managed agents powered by OpenAI, a striking shift given OpenAI's historically close tie to Microsoft Azure. Bedrock now offers OpenAI models next to Anthropic's Claude, Meta's models and others. That strengthens AWS's multi-model pitch, while Microsoft emphasizes sovereign-cloud controls for regulated customers.

Caveats: cross-Region inference is not the same as strict in-country processing. Organizations with hard data-residency obligations should confirm which regions handle their requests. Watch for full in-region hosting in Canada and for expansion of OpenAI models to other sovereignty-sensitive markets on Bedrock.