Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Canada Facebook Slashdot.org

Meta To Build $9 Billion Alberta Data Center, Its First In Canada (yahoo.com) 70

Posted by BeauHD from the meta-goes-north dept.
Meta will build its first Canadian data center in Alberta, investing $9 billion in a 1-gigawatt facility that can scale to 1.8 gigawatts to support its AI infrastructure needs. The project will rely on new generation and grid infrastructure funded by Meta, including a long-term agreement tied to a new natural gas power facility. The company says it will offset electricity use with clean and renewable energy investments. Reuters reports: 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. 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.

Meta To Build $9 Billion Alberta Data Center, Its First In Canada More | Reply

Meta To Build $9 Billion Alberta Data Center, Its First In Canada

Comments Filter:

  • Heatwaves all over northern hemisphere this summer (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday July 09, 2026 @07:04AM (#66229714) Homepage

    Yet 150 cubic feet of gas per day will be burnt to run a datacentre to so what.... generate more AI slop and scan images in order to stroke Fuckerbergs ego and reduce what little privacy there is online that little bit more?

    • Re:Heatwaves all over northern hemisphere this sum (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday July 09, 2026 @07:06AM (#66229720) Homepage

      Typo: should read 150 million cubic feet

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Being Canada isn't America, they ought to be mandating that the roof of this building be plastered with solar panels. It won't solve for the entire power budget, but at least it'll cut a chunk of that gas out, and it's at least trying to do something approaching the right thing. If Zuck says "no thanks", then fine, leave him to build it in America so they get all the emissions, then use the land for a solar farm anyway.

      • The only question I would say for that in Alberta is the snowfall but I imagine almost every datacentre getting built will be plastered with solar panels because it's just good business. Your highest operating cost will always be energy so having a giant flat pizzabox that could generate you some of that, well with the price of solar panels today I don't think you have to be an MBA to figure out the ROI on that makes a ton of sense.

        Really the only reason for a datacentre to not cover itself in solar panels

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by caseih ( 160668 )

          For ideal winter power generation, solar needs to be tipped at those latitudes and from the experience I have with a 450 kw microgen site, snow does not accumulate on panels at that angle, so they should be pretty good. As you say it's a no-brainer and in fact battery storage should be required as well.

          I happen to know that a very large multinational company was in the planning stages to build modular data centers across the US with built-in solar and batteries, but the Trump administration put a stop to it

          • Ok that does make sense, I was curious if there had to be periodic clearing of snow up there but I would bet with that amount of generation it would still make financial sense even if you had to pay people to go up and clear them.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by caseih ( 160668 )

              To be more clear, in winter if tipped to the appropriate angle *for winter* snow doesn't accumulate because the panel is too steep. But that is tipped too far for summer, so you would need to tip it back to a summer angle. If you choose a middle of the road angle (90 - latitude) that works all year round, then snow will definitely accumulate where they are planning to build and would need to be cleaned off. So either way there is manual work (or at least a mechanical complexity) to either tilt the panels

      • Being Canada isn't America

        You need some geography lessons.

        • Being Canada isn't America

          You need some geography lessons.

          Brilliant self-own. You are the one who needs geography lessons. And maybe throw in lessons on the definition of a "sovereign nation."

          "Canada isn't America" is an objectively true statement. That holds whether you consider "America" to be the United States, or all of North America, which consists of 23 sovereign countries. (Yes, that many.)

      • Re:Heatwaves all over northern hemisphere this sum (Score:5, Informative)

        by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday July 09, 2026 @11:33AM (#66230084)

        I wish. This is Alberta, MAGA country (I'm not joking), the Texas of Canada, full of trump supporters who really do want to give Alberta lock, stock and barrel to Trump---they have a delusion that they will be treated as an equal partner when this happens. US citizenship and everything (provided they are white). Nevermind affording healthcare. They couch all this in terms of an "Independent Alberta."

        Meanwhile, the premier fancies herself a bold and visionary leader just like Trump and deeply admires everything he's done. She wants to ensure money (including public money) keeps flowing to her friends in the oil industry. She's already put a stop to most large-scale renewable projects in Alberta saying they blight our beautiful landscapes. Oil and gas do remain extremely important, but renewables is an area Alberta was really leading the way in until recent years. Half the farmers in my area have microgen solar in the corners of pivot circles and marginal areas of their farms and making good money too.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Funny, I'm from there. I was home recently and there were an awful lot of Canadian flags and signs around. My mother told me everyone thought it was the southerners who were separatists until some people went down there for a meeting and the southerners told them they thought it was the northerners who were pushing independence.

          The combination of anonymous social media accounts from around the world, a corrupt premier who's desperate for any distraction and a few useful loudmouths can give everyone a comple

        • Meanwhile, the premier fancies herself a bold and visionary leader just like Trump and deeply admires everything he's done. She wants to ensure money (including public money) keeps flowing to her friends in the oil industry.

          IIRC she even went down to Mar a Lago to ask Trump to throw some shade on PP because she knew that approval from Trump was actually harming Poilievre's chances of winning the Prime Minister's race. It was at that point that I started calling her 'Benedict Smith'.

          I really wish we could clone Wab Kinew and have him as Premier of several provinces, including here in Ontario. Now there's a guy who seems to have his head on straight.

      • Being Canada isn't America, they ought to be mandating that the roof of this building be plastered with solar panels. It won't solve for the entire power budget, but at least it'll cut a chunk of that gas out

        As an Albertan (whose parents are going to be a couple miles from this thing), solar defeats the purpose. Our government doesn't believe in intelligence (artificial or otherwise). They want to burn the natural gas. They don't care if it generates power or runs a data center or if teens just lean over the stacks to huff the exhaust. Just so long as they're buying the gas.

        As an aside - plenty of places in Alberta run solar or wind, even in the winter. It's just not politically expedient. If you want EVs and s

      • See: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

        Bet those 10 solar panels really help out... this place isn't an Amazon warehouse in size.
        And... https://solarpanelquestions.co... [solarpanelquestions.com]
        So, if it's a 4 acre building figure roughly 3.5 (maybe less because of rooftop HVAC), let's say 3k to 3.5k solar panels. How thick is the roof to support all that added weight (bet those panels aren't light)? At 62lbs. per panel, 3,500 panels... roughly 100 tons on the roof.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      well, the surveillance mega corporation state needs to be powered somehow ...

      • Plus, gotta run SkyNet on something... why not put it out in the woods where nobody can get to it.
        Hmm... wonder if SkyNet and The Matrix could co-exist on the same server?

  • Alberta wants to be like Texas, for some people, to the point of seceding from Canada. But Texas invested in solar and wind power, which Alberta, it seems, didn't.

    Meta will build a data centre, then a clean energy plant? Riiiiight! There's no benefit to doing that. When it's time to down-size their data centre, Meta will have to sell electricity to keep their plant profitable. That will probably be more electricity than Alberta needs: Doubly so, if other data centres are also down-sizing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      We used to be investing in solar and wind in a big way and backing away from coal-fired electricity. But now that MAGA is taking over Alberta, they are ensuring that nothing stands in the way of that sweet sweet oil and gas money.

    • What clean energy plant? The polluting NatGas plant?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Alberta has a fair amount of wind power, and has for decades. It has to compete with natural gas though, and lots of places in Alberta natural gas is a waste product that's flared off.

  • More bacteria in a public water system? (Score:3)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Thursday July 09, 2026 @08:52AM (#66229804) Journal
    In Wyoming, a contractor working to build Meta's data center, discharged untreated water into the municipal water system which led to the introduction of Cupriavidus gilardii into the water system [wyomingnews.com].

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      That's what happens when you let those pseudo-conservatives get any amount of power, they destroy everything they can.

  • Cannot even find a use for the AI data centers / GPU's they have already?
    Are they going to lease out the GPS?
    With that much competition?

    I guess Mark / Meta want to get into the low margin datacenter business. That's going to put a crimp on profitability.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      IIUC, Meta sells compute to Anthropic. That's not "not finding a use".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kriston ( 7886 )

      I had the pleasure of visiting a couple of Meta (nee Facebook) data centers several years ago.

      They're using new thinking and research to figure out how to cool and power them. It's really quite interesting. Sometimes they make mistakes but that's in their culture.

      Though putting a data center in the Oregon High Desert gave me pause due to the water consumption it required being in an area with severe water constraints.

      They do put solar farms all over their property and on the roofs, so there's that.

  • A 1GW datacenter costs 9 billion dollars just for the building, a GW power station is another half billion.
    Then 20 billion for the compute

  • Great, so we're going to consume 71% of an Edmonton in electricity to create... 300 long-term jobs as reported in the Globe and Mail (Which is BS anyway; I bet there will be around 100 people needed long-term for the data centre.)

    What I'd be interested in seeing is the tax breaks and bribes the government will be expected to give Meta to build the DC there. I suspect it'll be like FIFA: Lots of splash and drama and a net negative in terms of revenue for Canada.

  • Meanwhile... (Score:3)

    by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Thursday July 09, 2026 @10:37AM (#66229968) Homepage

    AI centers demand two things, power and water.

    And so while they're going to use gas to power this site, and god knows about the water, the Grande Baleine dam in Quebec is just sitting there with... power and water.

    Seems like a no-brainer to me. It's also closer to the US and Canadian population mass, so lower latencies. Running some fibre down the existing corridor does not seem like a possible impediment either.

    • AI centers demand two things, power and water.

      And so while they're going to use gas to power this site, and god knows about the water, the Grande Baleine dam in Quebec is just sitting there with... power and water.

      Seems like a no-brainer to me. It's also closer to the US and Canadian population mass, so lower latencies. Running some fibre down the existing corridor does not seem like a possible impediment either.

      Running fiber inside the Guard Cables of the High Voltage Transmission towers is a practice that dates back to the mid 90's.

      Having said that, the location of a Datacenter is dictated as much by water, energy and fiber, as it is dictated by financial incentives to "git'em-jubs". Discounts on the land, tax rebates and such. Probably, the politicians with the dam tought that the dam alone would be enough to sawy Meta, meanwhile, the politicians in alberta were more acapable to achieve their goal

    • Data center use of power is very high, but water is often being overestimated. See https://theconversation.com/ai-has-a-hidden-water-cost-heres-how-to-calculate-yours-263252 [theconversation.com] for a good basic discussion of the issues involved.

      • The water estimates vary greatly with the cooling solution which itself varies with location, environment, and local regulations. Datacentres can have an insanely high water consumption. They can also have zero water consumption (except for maybe flushing a toilet after you've racked in a server and taken a shit).

        There's no way of calculating your water use for an AI query without knowing which datacentre contributed to your query.

  • Alberta is a province of would-be cowboys.
    They have a seperatist movement that aspires to be like Texas.

  • Is Trump country no good anymore? Are people complaining about odd noise, power fluctuations and or water problems?

    Canada has a bewildering wealth and breadth of nature. Let's convert some of that to server farms. It's for the kids.

  • 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.

    That's a pretty low bar.
    3 out of 3 AIs agree that is 325,000 gallons a day, give or take 25 or so kgals.
    Maybe that's not a lot in Alberta, but in central Texas that has proved to be a "No, Thank You".

  • I thought their AI market share would be around 5-6% but I see 15-20% [resourcera.com].

    Damn, don't people feel icky using Zucker's products?

  • its total water use will be less than that of a typical golf course.

    A "typical golf course" uses massive amounts of water.

Slashdot Top Deals

Entropy isn't what it used to be.

Close