Meta announced the construction of its first data center in Canada, a large-scale facility located in Sturgeon County, Alberta, which will require an estimated investment of 13 billion Canadian dollars, equivalent to about 9.17 billion US dollars.
The project will have an initial capacity of 1 gigawatt and can be expanded to 1.8 gigawatts. With this project, the company seeks to strengthen the infrastructure necessary to support artificial intelligence workloads, digital services, and future applications associated with its platforms.
Alberta gains prominence in AI infrastructure
According to the company, this will be Meta’s 33rd data center worldwide and its first in Canada. The facility will be located in a province that has been trying for years to attract technology investment by leveraging its available industrial land, low temperatures, abundant natural gas, and flexible electricity market.
Furthermore, Alberta’s cool climate can reduce some of the costs associated with cooling servers and supercomputers. This is crucial in AI data centers, where high computing density drives up thermal and energy demands.
Energy, natural gas and new electrical infrastructure
Meta announced that it will finance the power generation infrastructure and grid upgrades necessary to supply the complex. The facility will consume an amount of electricity comparable to the demand of hundreds of thousands of homes, making energy supply a key technical aspect of the project.
The company will also rely on agreements with energy players in Alberta, Pembina Pipeline will move forward with the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a natural gas-fired power plant in Sturgeon County scheduled to come online by the end of 2030. Meanwhile, Capital Power will supply some of the electricity using its existing fleet of natural gas-fired power plants.
The project will also increase demand for natural gas in western Canada; according to Pembina, the new power plant will require about 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Liquid cooling and reduced water usage
Meta indicated that the data center will use a closed-loop liquid cooling system; this technology allows for temperature control of high-performance equipment with lower water consumption than other traditional cooling systems.
The company also stated that it will offset its electricity consumption through investments in clean and renewable energy. However, the project comes amid a growing debate about the environmental impact of mega data centers, especially in regions where the electricity grid relies heavily on natural gas.
Environmental debate over AI data centers
The announcement drew criticism from environmental organizations in Canada; Greenpeace Canada called for a moratorium on mega data centers until there are greater environmental and human rights protections linked to the development of artificial intelligence.
Even so, Alberta sees the project as a beacon for new digital investment. The province’s Minister of Technology and Innovation, Nate Glubish, said there are other gigawatt-scale data center proposals in various stages of development.
With this investment, Meta is accelerating its global AI infrastructure strategy and putting Alberta on the map as a major industrial data hub. The province, meanwhile, is seeking to transform its energy base into a competitive advantage for the digital economy.
Source: Reuters
Photo: Shutterstock
