Meta reveals first Canada data centre as it scales AI

Located in Sturgeon County, Alberta, Meta’s new 1GW data centre will be AI-optimised and will represent an investment of more than CAD$13 billion (~ US$9.2 billion), the company shared.

The social media giant added that it anticipates 3,000 construction workers on site, with the data centre expected to support more than 300 operational jobs.

“This data centre will be optimised for our AI workloads, helping bring to life the technologies that billions around the world use to connect, find communities, grow businesses and experience the power of our wearables,” Meta said.

With this development, Meta has prioritised highlighting its support of the electrical grid and water stewardship – both very public concerns of the data centre industry currently. The company said it is fully funding new generation and grid infrastructure to support the new data centre in Alberta, stating that it hopes this will improve reliability across the entire Alberta grid.

“We pay the full costs of our data centres’ energy use, so consumers aren’t negatively impacted, and fund new and upgraded infrastructure,” Meta said via an online statement. “We worked closely with Greenlight Limited Partnership, Altalink, Capitol Power and the Alberta Electric System Operator to plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of this data centre coming online.”

The data centre’s electricity use, like Meta’s other sites, will be matched with 100% clean and renewable energy, the company added. Likewise, there are plans for a water-efficient closed-loop, liquid-cooled system within the data centre, meaning there will be no operational water use in the cooling system.

“Water use at the site will be limited to domestic uses, fire protection safety and equipment maintenance,” Meta said. “We also pay the full costs of water and wastewater service required to support our data centres so consumers aren’t negatively impacted.”

Meta has pledged to be water positive by 2030, whereby it will restore more water than it consumes worldwide where it owns operations. This is why the company emphasises its ‘minimal water’ data centre strategy.

CAD$60 million is also being invested by Meta into local infrastructure improvements that will benefit the local community, the company added. It also pledged to launch its annual Data Center Community Action Grants in the region to provide direct funding for local nonprofits that support the community.

News of the new data centre comes as Meta continues to ramp up its AI efforts, having this week launched Muse Image, its first image-generation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs as it bids to expand Gen AI across its apps.

Meta has consistently said its goal is to achieve what it refers to as “personal intelligence” – an AI-enabled assistant that is able to help anyone.

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