Meta unveils plans $13B AI data centre north of Edmonton

Meta has unveiled plans for a massive data centre intended for Sturgeon County. It's the first for the tech giant in Canada.

Meta has unveiled its plans for its first large artificial intelligence data centre in Canada and it landed on Alberta.

A multi-billion dollar facility is set to be built north of Edmonton, and it’s a plan two years in the making.

While the province is cheerleading the project, some say the government needs to slow it all down.

“I’m happy to announce that Meta has announced plans to build its first Canadian data centre in Alberta, representing an investment of more than $13 billion in our province,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Wednesday.

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram will build a one-gigawatt data centre in Sturgeon County, about 35 kilometres north of Edmonton.

“Energy and energy infrastructure is probably the most important input into operting successful data centre campus over time,” said Gary Emas, the vice-president of data centre strategy and development for Meta.

“We do look for local talent and both from a construction perspective, this facility at peak will support 3,000 construction jobs, (and) at operations, this facility will support 300 new jobs.”

It’ll be the tech giant’s 33rd data centre globally as it pushes products to support the AI boom.

“This is a big deal for Alberta,” said Alberta technology and innovation minister Nate Glubish. “It’s one of the biggest in Alberta and Canadian history. you know, as this project scales to 1800 megawatts, it’s possible that the total investment will increase.”

“What we’re talking about today is certainly bigger than any one municipality. It is about Alberta’s future and Canada’s place in a world that is rapidly changing,” said Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw.

But it’s a move already facing some pushback.

“It’s a real shame because there’s there’s a real opportunity for these data centres to create a lot of opportunity for things like clean energy, wind and solar that are low-cost options, and obviously low emission as well,” said David Pickup, the Pembina Institute’s director of electricity.

“We’re not setting a good precedent to be forging ahead with massive builds,” said Bek Macintosh, the founder of Little Town Big Data. “Because data centers come with infrasound and low frequency sound, and there’s a whole bunch of concerns regarding water.”

Dry cooling system

The premier and technology minister both said Wednesday that those concerns and hesitations were similar to what they had two years ago when they started looking at data centre projects.

Glubish said Alberta didn’t want to be the first to build these centres, it wanted to be the jurisdiction that did it properly.

Meta also says it understands concerns, specifically around water.

The Sturgeon County Data Centre will use a dry cooling system , so the servers won’t be cooled by water, but by air.

The company says the data centre will use less water per year than a golf course.

Initial construction is already underway and expected to be done by 2030.