Access OpenAI GPT models on Amazon Bedrock from Canada with cross-Region inference

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Canadian organizations building generative AI applications on Amazon Bedrock often need the latest foundation models (FMs), such as OpenAI GPT-6.1, OpenAI GPT-6, and GPT-5.6, accessible from the Canadian AWS Regions. With Amazon Bedrock cross-Region inference (CRIS), you can now access these models from Canada. OpenAI GPT-5.6 models (Sol, Terra, and Luna), GPT-6 (Astra, Sol, and Luna), and GPT-6.1 Sol are available from the Canada (Central) and Canada West (Calgary) Regions.

Inference is processed in North America, with data-residency controls described later in this post.

Cross-Region inference is a capacity mechanism. Your application calls the Amazon Bedrock Runtime endpoint in your source Region. Amazon Bedrock then routes the request to a supported destination Region for processing. With this approach, you get access to a broader capacity pool that can help your application sustain throughput during demand spikes. You don’t need to manage destination Region routing in your application.

In this post, we walk through the GPT-5.6, GPT-6, and GPT-6.1 models available from Canada and the cross-Region inference profiles that serve them. We then show how to set up permissions and invoke the models with the OpenAI Responses API, Chat Completions API, and the Amazon Bedrock Converse API. For the Responses API, we include streaming and tool-use examples.

Finally, we cover how to request quota increases, review the observability signals available in your source Region, and clean up when you are done.

With Amazon Bedrock, you can access three families of OpenAI models in Canada through cross-Region inference. The following table summarizes each model and its positioning.

These models accept text and image inputs, return text, and support a 1-million-token context window, reasoning mode, and tool calling. GPT-6.1 Sol supports the same context window and tool calling, with additional input and output modalities documented in its model card. GPT-5.6, GPT-6, and GPT-6.1 also support prompt caching on Amazon Bedrock (see the Prompt caching section).

These models are available through the OpenAI Responses API, the OpenAI Chat Completions API, and the Amazon Bedrock Converse API on the bedrock-runtime endpoint.

For pricing, see Amazon Bedrock pricing. For per-model Region availability, see the model cards in the Amazon Bedrock User Guide.

Amazon Bedrock inference profiles are logical identifiers you pass in place of a raw model ID. Each profile defines a model and the set of Regions to which Amazon Bedrock can route a request.

Endpoint availability differs by model and source Region, as shown in the following table.

Profile membership and model availability can change. The global profile for the GPT-5.6 models is available only from ca-central-1. From ca-west-1, use the US geographic profile for GPT-5.6. Verify the active profiles for your source Region before deployment, either with the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or on the console (see the following section), or see the Cross-Region inference support documentation.