Meta to build $13B data centre north of Edmonton, its first in Canada

CALGARY – The tech behemoth behind Facebook and Instagram says it plans to make Alberta home to its first artificial intelligence data centre in Canada and its largest outside the United States. 

Meta announced Wednesday that the $13-billion-plus project is to be built in Sturgeon County, in the Industrial Heartland region north of Edmonton.

The one-gigawatt, nearly 270,000-square-metre data centre would be powered by a natural gas-fired plant to be built by a consortium that includes Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Ltd. 

It takes about 1.4 gigawatts to power Edmonton, and the proposed data centre campus could fit 33 Canadian Football League fields.

“We believe that the success of a data centre is only possible when the community itself succeeds along with it. More than that, we want Sturgeon County and Alberta to thrive,” Gary Demasi, vice-president of data centre strategy and development at Meta, told a news conference in Calgary. 

“We look forward to putting down roots in this community and building a strong and positive partnership for many years to come.”

Data centres house computing hardware needed for a wide array of tech applications. With the boom in artificial intelligence, the facilities have grown to mind-boggling scales, often requiring enough electricity to power a whole city.

With the dizzying growth of the data centre industry have come concerns over water use, pollution and the cost and availability of power in nearby communities. 

Meta said its project is to feature a closed-loop water cooling system, so it won’t draw water from the surrounding area. It also said it plans to spend $60 million to improve local infrastructure, such as roads and water systems. 

“Our data centre will use a water efficient closed-loop, liquid-cooled system with dry cooling, which means there is no operational water use in the cooling system,” Meta wrote in a Facebook post, which links to the project’s website and a Meta website outlining its corporate plans for data centres worldwide. 

“This means our annual operational water use is projected to be less than one typical golf course or a 50 acre canola farm in the region.”

The Alberta government estimates the project will create 3,000 construction jobs and 300 jobs during operations. It also expects to get $250 million in annual benefits via royalties, taxes, levies and fees. 

Alberta has been actively courting hyperscalers like Meta to set up shop in the province, setting up a “concierge” service to help navigate the regulatory process.

In late 2024, Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish said Alberta hoped to have $100 billion in data centres under construction in five years.

But its electricity grid currently doesn’t have capacity to accommodate several such projects. So it’s prioritizing projects that build or contract their own power generation, as Meta is planning to do. 

Meta’s announcement is a “big deal for Alberta,” Glubish said Wednesday. 

“We didn’t do it by accident. We did it by design. We did in a way that is going to benefit Albertans,” he said.

“We did not want to be first and rush in blindly. We wanted to be smartest to ensure that we had a fair, reasonable, clear regulatory framework so that anybody who wants to build a data centre here knows exactly what to expect, exactly what they need to do, and every Albertan can be confident that their interests are protected and that they will benefit from this investment.”

Glubish told reporters Alberta’s concierge team has been in talks with at least 60 different proponents of various sizes. 

Some projects have riled up local communities, including a data centre plan north of Calgary in Olds.

Synapse Real Estate Corp.’s 10-building complex, powered by a collective 1.4 gigawatts of natural gas-fired electricity, would be situated within the town limits near homes and businesses. The Alberta Utilities Commission rejected it earlier this year, citing “significant deficiencies,” and a new application is now before the regulator. 

Premier Danielle Smith told reporters Wednesday that the Meta project would be built in an area well-accustomed to heavy industrial operations, with refineries and petrochemical plants. 

“I look at the different issues that have been raised in different communities. We took those seriously, and I believe that this particular project answered all of those.” 

Sturgeon County is becoming an “important part of Canada’s emerging AI and power corridor,” said Mayor Alanna Hnatiw. 

“And that brings opportunity, and it also brings with it responsibility,” she said. 

“I am so pleased that Meta has embraced the environmental standards in our designated industrial zone and that they are willing participants in our approach to responsible land stewardship.”

Last week, Pembina Pipeline, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management announced they had decided to go ahead with their Greenlight Electricity Centre in Sturgeon County. At the time, they didn’t disclose the customer would be Meta. 

They expect their 932-megawatt power project to cost $4.6 billion to build, with startup targeted for the second half of 2030. The companies have permits that would allow them to double capacity down the line.

Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, called for a moratorium on “megadata centres,” until there are legislated environmental and human rights protections on AI. 

“We’re seeing these kinds of promises made all by AI data centre proponents around the world, but the reality is that these are billionaires trying to steal our water and pollute the air so they can double our electricity while taking away our jobs.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2026.

Companies in this story: (TSX:PPL) 

— With files from Jack Farrell in Edmonton