Meta will build its first Canadian data centre northeast of Edmonton—a $13-billion investment that will be the largest data centre in the country.
The US social media giant announced the news on Wednesday. The one-gigawatt, AI-optimized centre will be built in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, an industrially zoned area within Sturgeon County not used for farming, housing, or food production.
The data centre was first announced last year. At the time, partners Pembina Pipeline Corporation, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, and Kineticor Asset Management said they would build and power the data centre to serve what was then an unnamed client.
Meta said it will invest $13 billion CAD into the data centre, claiming the project will support 3,000 jobs as it is being built and 300 permanent jobs once it is operational. The company is also spending $60 million CAD in local infrastructure improvements, including upgrades to roads and water systems. Whether those upgrades will be directly related to servicing the data centre was not specified.
Representatives from Alberta issued statements supporting the project, with the Province claiming the data centre will generate around $250 million in annual benefits, mostly through royalties, taxes, levies, and fees.
“For two years we promoted Alberta to the biggest players in the world, built a clear, competitive and fair regulatory framework, and put a concierge team to work helping proponents like Meta move fast,” Alberta’s innovation minister, Nate Glubish, said in a press release today. “Data centres need reliable energy and speed to market. Meta’s investment proves that Alberta delivers.”
Data centres required to provide own power
Under Alberta’s AI data centre strategy, large-scale data centres like Meta’s are required to provide their own power and pay for the infrastructure needed to support their operation. Meta said it will pay the full cost of the data centre’s energy use. The data centre will connect with Alberta’s electricity grid, but also buttress that connectivity with on-site, natural-gas generated electricity through a partnership with the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a 932-megawatt facility which was approved last week.
The data centre’s 1GW energy load is roughly two-thirds the amount used by the entire city of Edmonton, which according to the Alberta Electric System Operator is 1.4GW, while Calgary consumes 1.8GW. It will be roughly 10 times the energy load of the largest data centre being built by Telus in BC.
Meta said it plans to match the data centres’ electricity use with “100 percent renewables” but didn’t say where those renewables would come from.
Alberta also requires data centre operators to meet sustainability requirements under the provincial Water Act. Meta has claimed its new data centre will employ a “water-efficient, closed-loop, liquid-cooled system.” That would limit water use at the site to domestic uses, fire protection, and equipment maintenance, though the definition of what constitutes equipment maintenance was not made clear.
For two years we promoted Alberta to the biggest players in the world, built a clear, competitive and fair regulatory framework, and put a concierge team to work helping proponents like Meta move fast.
Nate Glubish, Alberta’s innovation minister
Concern around the environmental and human impact of data centre development has prompted backlash from impacted communities over the past year. In Manitoba, Premier Wab Kinew rejected the development of a large-scale data centre, saying it wouldn’t be in the best interest of constituents. In Olds, Alta., public opposition contributed to derailing a hyperscale project there earlier this year. BetaKit reached out to the Sturgeon River Watershed Alliance for comment on the development and its potential environmental impacts, but did not immediately receive a response.
Just this week, a Meta-affiliated data centre in Wyoming flushed bacteria-contaminated wastewater into public sewer systems.
In a press release, Sturgeon County mayor Alan Hnatiw praised the decision by Meta to make Sturgeon County the home of its first Canadian data centre, saying the location was chosen specifically because of the Alberta Industrial Heartland zone and its proximity to skilled workers. He also said the project would help diversify the municipality’s non-residential tax base.
“We welcome Meta to Sturgeon County,” Hnatiw said. “This project will create opportunities for our residents, diversify our tax base and support our community for years to come.”
BetaKit reached out to Meta to confirm its reason for choosing Sturgeon County, but has not yet received a response.
Meta is one of the primary players in big tech contributing to the data centre boom. In the US alone, the social media giant has committed to invest $600 billion USD in data centre jobs and infrastructure to power its increasing AI compute.
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Meta.
With files from Sarah Rieger.