Meta to build C$13 billion Alberta data center, its first in Canada

CALGARY: Tech giant Meta announced Wednesday it will build a massive data center in central Alberta, the company’s first in Canada, as it rapidly builds out computing capacity to support the global AI ‌boom.

The 1-gigawatt data center, which will be built with the ability to scale up to 1.8 gigawatts, will be located in Sturgeon County and represents a total investment of C$13 billion, or $9.17 billion, Meta said.

Meta has doubled down on AI, pledging hundreds of billions of dollars to build large AI data centers in the U.S. The Alberta announcement represents the company’s 33rd data center globally.

Executives made the announcement in Calgary alongside Premier Danielle Smith and other Alberta government officials, who have spent several years courting Silicon Valley tech giants with the aim of spurring a large-scale investment in the oil-and-gas province.

Alberta’s ⁠technology minister, Nate Glubish, told reporters there are currently several other gigawatt-scale data center proposals in various stages of development in the province.

“This is the first of its kind, the first of its size, the first of its scale, but it won’t be the last,” Glubish said.

Meta, like other tech giants, is facing rapidly expanding power needs due to the growth of AI, and Alberta is rich in natural gas which sells at a significant discount to the U.S. benchmark.

The province’s cold climate also makes cooling the massive super-computers and related data center infrastructure more cost-efficient.

The 20 existing small- to mid-scale data centers in Alberta already pull from the province’s energy grid, which is 60% powered by natural gas. The provincial government is giving new proponents the option to build their own power sources to avoid limits on power capacity.

Meta said Wednesday it will fully fund new generation and grid infrastructure for its Alberta data center, which will consume about ‌as much ⁠electricity as 800,000 homes.

This MRI scan of a human brain shows in red an area that could be a potential lesion, and a possible cause of epilepsy.

Gary Demasi, Meta’s vice president for data center development, said the company will offset that electricity use by investing in clean and renewable energy.

He also said the data center will use a closed-loop liquid cooling system, meaning its total water use will be less than that of a typical golf course.

The company has partnered with Alberta-based Pembina Pipeline which announced last week it will go ahead with its Greenlight Electricity Centre, a new natural gas-fired power-generation facility in Sturgeon County which will be in service in ⁠late 2030 and with which Meta has a long-term tolling agreement.

Until that project is operational and for the next decade, Alberta-based power producer Capital Power will provide 250 megawatts of electricity for the site using its existing natural gas-fired fleet.

The project will require approximately 150 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, according to Pembina, helping to create demand for Western ⁠Canadian natural gas producers.

Canada’s government laid out an AI strategy last month that suggested new data center growth would benefit from the country’s clean electricity grid, which is largely powered by renewables and low-emission power sources.

But the vast majority of data centers currently in the planning stages in Canada are located in Alberta, where ⁠a reliance on natural gas means the emissions intensity of the province’s electricity grid is almost five times the national average.

Environmentalists in Canada were quick to condemn Meta’s plans, with some saying tech billionaires have no right to the country’s natural resources.

“We need a moratorium on mega-data centers until we have legislated environmental and human rights protections on AI,” said Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada.