Nearly two dozen AI hyperscalers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, have agreed to the federal government’s new framework for building data centres in Canada.
“If you build in Canada, you must build responsibly, transparently and for Canadians.”
AI Minister Evan Solomon
AI Minister Evan Solomon announced the framework and its signatories at an event in Markham on Thursday morning. Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles are intended to support the domestic data centre buildout the federal government is pursuing as part of its AI strategy, while addressing public concerns about higher water use, electricity bills, and other local impacts.
In a statement, Solomon said that Canada is building the digital infrastructure needed to lead in the age of AI, grow its economy, and strengthen its sovereignty, but “how we build matters.”
“These principles set a clear national standard: if you build in Canada, you must build responsibly, transparently and for Canadians,” Solomon said.
The framework includes five expectations:
- Data centre development must create lasting local benefits;
- Data centres must not shift electricity costs to Canadians;
- Data centres must minimize water use and environmental impacts;
- Data centre developers must be transparent about local impacts;
- Data centre developments must bring strategic value to Canada.
It was not immediately clear if the framework comes with specific, binding definitions, such as what specifically constitutes minimized water use, or if there are any associated penalties for not following it.
Nonetheless, the framework has secured 23 signatories, including the largest AI companies and hyperscalers building data centres in Canada. This includes Amazon Web Services, Bell, Telus, OVHCloud, Hypertec, ThinkOn, and Beacon Data Centres. Other big tech companies that agreed included Canada’s leading LLM developer, Cohere, as well as Microsoft and Meta. Meta is already planning to build Canada’s largest data centre development in Alberta.
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The federal framework follows similar initiatives at the provincial level, including Ontario and Alberta, which have both forwarded rules requiring data centre projects to bear the full cost for their electricity use.
While many companies that signed on to the framework are looking to strengthen their much-needed compute capabilities in Canada—including Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI—they are having a hard time selling the buildout to the public. Angus Reid Institute polling shows more than two-thirds of Canadians oppose having data centres built near their homes. This has led to firms like Anthropic hiring data centre community engagement managers to “coordinate charitable giving, community investment, and economic development commitments” to woo the markets they hope to bring “gigawatts of compute” to.
Feature image courtesy Web Summit.