Alberta minister wants to see $100B in data centre infrastructure in next five years

Nate Glubish shakes hands with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith after Glubish was sworn into cabinet as Minister of Technology and Innovations in Edmonton, Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. (John Franson)

Alberta Technology Minister Nate Glubish says he's hoping to see $100 billion worth of artificial intelligence data centres under construction within the next five years.

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Such centres are filled with computer servers used by companies like Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, to develop and train large-scale artificial intelligence models.

These centres, depending on size, require loads of electricity to run.

In an interview, Glubish said Meta, as well as other major companies like Google and Amazon, are on the hunt for space, and he wants Alberta to be an option.

"That's where the home run comes in, in terms of increased investment, increased jobs and increased economic activity," Glubish said.

He added that, through the government's new data centre attraction strategy announced Wednesday, the government has created a "concierge program" to attract companies to Alberta.

"We're already working with about a dozen companies that are looking very seriously at setting up a data centre in Alberta," he said.

"We're working with them to help identify the fastest way through the regulatory framework to get their projects moving forward."

He said the ultimate goal is to create jobs and bring in much needed new tax revenue.

Glubish said since Alberta's deregulated electricity market allows for off-grid power generation — permitting power generators to strike deals with private companies and supply them directly — the province is an ideal landing spot for many companies.

"The key there is off-grid means no risk to the grid in terms of reliability and affordability," he said. "Make no mistake, we are not going to let anything happen that compromises affordability or reliability for Alberta's electrical grid."

"That's a no-go zone for Albertans."

This past January, during an extreme cold snap, high demand and unexpected generation outages led the Alberta Electric System Operator to issue an emergency grid warning asking Albertans to conserve power to avoid rolling blackouts.

The operator reported that two days before the January grid warning, Alberta had hit a record level of power demand at 12,384 megawatts.

But Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf told reporters Wednesday that Alberta's electricity grid could handle data centres.

"We have some room on our grid right now, but data centres can capture everything from 20 megawatts to 10,000 megawatts," Neudorf said. "We are trying to identify who's interested, what size, what are their needs and where would they like to go, so we can provide the best path for them.

"We have the ability, with our private industry, to scale up our generation very, very quickly, without it being dollars spent by the taxpayer or the government on behalf of the taxpayer."

On Wednesday, the Royal Bank of Canada's Climate Action Institute released a report that found if all data centre projects currently going through the regulatory approval process across the country were approved, they would account for 14 per cent of Canada's power needs by 2030.

"Canadian regulators are reviewing data centre applications with an estimated combined capacity of 15 gigawatts — enough to power seven out of 10 homes nationwide," the report reads, noting that Alberta-based projects represent 6.5 gigawatts (or 6,500 megawatts) of capacity.

"Alberta, with ample natural gas and lower grid pressures, prefers data centres operate off-grid, minimizing the strain on public grids," the report states.

"But powering AI through natural gas comes with an emissions cost that provinces will need to weigh."

The report said that if natural gas were to power six gigawatts of electricity for data centres, it would create an estimated 16 million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions, although the use of carbon capture and storage could provide a partial offset.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2024