Meta to build its largest data centre outside the U.S. in Alberta

Meta is set to open its first data centre in Canada, which will also be its largest outside of the U.S.

At an event in Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith and Meta’s vice-president of Data Centres, Gary Demasi, confirmed that the new facility is being constructed in Sturgeon County, which is northeast of Edmonton.

A projected opening date wasn’t provided, but Meta confirmed it’s investing $13 billion into the centre, which it expects will house over 3,000 construction workers at peak and more than 300 operational jobs. The company has also committed at least $60 million into making local infrastructure improvements, which includes bolstering roads and water systems. Smith, meanwhile, said the data centre would generate at least $250 million for Alberta every year.

That said, the data centre raises concerns about water consumption, especially as there are ongoing efforts elsewhere in Alberta to fight these kinds of facilities. After all, data shows that mid-sized centres can consume as much water as a small town, while larger facilities can require up to five million gallons (about 19 million litres) every day, which is equivalent to what a city of 50,000 would need. Companies like Amazon and Google have also admitted that they are now emitting much more greenhouse gas due to their massive data centre networks.

Meta, of course, is trying to reassure people this isn’t the case with its own data centres. According to the company, the Sturgeon location will use a “water efficient closed-loop, liquid-cooled system with dry cooling,” which means there’s no operational water use in the cooling system. The company says this allows it to only use water for limited purposes, including fire protection safety and equipment maintenance. It adds that it will pay the full costs of water and wastewater service required to support its data centres. All of this is part of the company’s goal to be water positive by 2030.

It remains to be seen when the Sturgeon facility will open and what pushback it will receive from the community during the whole construction process. However, it follows the controversial announcement from Telus and the federal government regarding a new data centre in B.C. It also follows Hamilton, Ont., rejecting a proposal for a large data centre after public outcry — the city then started considering a temporary ban on such facilities.

Image credit: Meta

Source: Meta