Big tech goes west

On a recent spring course in Korea, I had the unique opportunity of visiting a variety of businesses and universities. A highlight of the trip was attending the 2025 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Expo in Seoul. I heard the same message over and over: AI is here to stay and is developing at a rate faster than ever – and to get ahead in the workforce we need to learn how to utilize it. 

The AI Expo “All Around AI” was a business-to-business conference designed to showcase artificial intelligence seamlessly integrating into business operations. The expo lasted three days, May 14-16, and featured 215 vendors from 13 countries. There were three rooms with keynote speakers. It was fascinating to see all the unique ways AI can be implemented. I saw an AI algorithm designed to compile and develop statistics for online job interviews, a third party application designed to make Excel faster to use, a robotic ice cream machine, autonomous driving and many other diverse applications. Browsing through the AI catalogue, I was surprised to find Quebec listed as a session that featured over seven speakers and ran for over two hours. Their topics included investment and research opportunities, collaboration and the AI ecosystem within Quebec. 

Major investments 

I visited Handong Global University to drop in on an “AI and Climate Change Class.” The guest lecturer taught us how to create presentations and music using AI. The process of creating a presentation was simple and took roughly five minutes. Making a song with AI was a bit more complicated: I had to use two AI platforms, one to create lyrics and another to create a melody. The whole process took 15 minutes. AI will not only penetrate business but other sectors of our daily lives, like music. 

PwC, one of the world’s largest accounting firms, predicts that AI will generate almost 16 trillion dollars in the next five years. Tech giants and governments are locked into an “AI Arms Race” in an effort to capitalize on this potential. It’s not just a race for leading the innovations but for building infrastructure. When it comes to energy use, AI is not cheap: “a [single] Chat GPT query uses 10 times the amount of power than an internet search,” Nancy Lanthier reported in The Globe and Mail. Powering the predicted technological revolution of AI will take new data centres built at a size we haven’t seen before. As the world shifts to accommodate AI and get ahead in cutting-edge technology, Alberta has become the surprising hot spot for investment. 

AI builds big in Alberta

In Alberta, Calgary’s Beacon AI Center is looking at the prospect of building “up to $10 billion- worth of data centres in the upcoming years,” The Logic reported in May. The firm is looking to build data centers for “hyperscalers” like big technology companies Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

One proposed data centre has already created waves. When business celebrity Kevin O’Leary (star of the TV show Dragon Den) announced plans to build an off-grid, natural-gas powered $750 million data center in northern Alberta, Sturgeon Lake Cree Chief Sunshine questioned the ethics of it. Sunshine says the centre will infringe on treaty rights by taking important resources, such as water and gas. Sunshine told Global News that their First Nation was not consulted: “With something in this nature, this size that they’re talking, have that open conversation with us. That is in our backyard.”

Matthew Wildcat, an assistant professor and director of Indigenous governance and partnership at the University of Alberta told Global News that the province is technically following the law, but also breaking the international standard of “free, prior and informed consent”: “I think that is betraying the spirit of what Indigenous people have been asking for, which is an open and transparent relationship.”

Why Alberta?

Key requirements for data centres are high speed internet, land and dependable power in order to avoid data-processing failures. CEO and President of eStruxtures Todd Coleman told The Globe and Mail, “Alberta offers a strong competitive advantage when it comes to its available land, fibre-optic connectivity and strong and reliable power capacity.” Alberta has been “positioning itself as an innovation hub,” wrote journalist Nancy Lanthier, and has allowed certain financial technology to be temporarily exempt from laws. 

Another $750 million data center, led by Montreal based company eStruxture Data Center, is projected to power up in 2026 near Calgary. This 90 megawatts (MW) operation is expected to be one of the country’s most powerful – and it needs to be, to meet the energy needs of AI. To put it into context, until recently data centres in Alberta delivered less than 20 MW of power. Once the new data center, dubbed CAL 3, is built, it will contribute to eStruxture’s overall matrix in the Calgary area. It will deliver “125 MW in data centre capacity in the Calgary area – enough to power about 100,000 homes in Calgary or the entire city of Thunder Bay” wrote Lanthier.  

Can Alberta’s power grid keep up?

According to an article published by CBC, the answer is no. Titled, “Alberta’s power grid ‘cannot possibly connect’ all proposed data centres, system operators says,” the article published on June 5 outlines how Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), an independent operator of Albertan electricity, has introduced a “temporary limit on how many new data centres can be added to the electrical grid.” 

AESO has allowed up to 1.2 gigawatts (GW) for new large-load data centres until 2028. Currently, there are 29 proposed projects in Alberta that would demand more than 16 GW. It’s a “level of demand that the province has never experienced” said AESO CEO Aaron Engen and “Alberta cannot possibly connect all those proposed data centre projects in the short term.” (For comparison, the load of all of Edmonton is roughly 1.4 GW.) However, AESO believes that the allowed “1.2 gigawatts could still unlock billions of dollars in investment in data centres.”

The province is finding a workaround. Late last year, Alberta Technology Minister Nash Glubish stated that he hoped to see “$100 billion worth dollars of artificial intelligence data centres.” The Alberta government highlighted how the province “deregulated electricity as a draw for operators, who can use it for off-grid power generations.” Off-grid electricity avoids AESO power sources, meaning data centres would be able to find their own ways to meet their energy needs. 

What’s ahead?

All of these data centres will create heat – literally. A single data centre campus can heat a mid-size city, says Hugh Hudson, a data center market manager from Daikin Applied. In Europe, data centres do heat homes and swimming pools, but recapturing heat is difficult and adds another layer of necessary infrastructure that is costly. With no legislation around using the heat, it’s up to the company to decide what to do. 

AI is here to stay and it is clear that Canada is desperate to be involved in the international shift. While AI can be seen as a positive development in diversifying Alberta revenue, the impacts on Indigenous people and land should be taken into consideration. This hot topic is about to make the planet even hotter.