business
Alberta’s data centre boom faces fierce and growing opposition
Opposition to Alberta's data centre boom is fierce and growing, with landowners resisting developers' offers to buy land.
Key points
- Beacon Data Centers Inc. plans a 1,494-megawatt natural gas plant near Indus to power a neighbouring hyperscale AI data centre.
- Alberta has 20 active data centres, with another 149 announced and four under construction, according to data provider Aterio.
- Meta plans a $13-billion data centre campus near Edmonton, and Anthropic is reportedly in talks to lease Beacon's Sturgeon County campus.
Why it matters. Growing landowner resistance and restrictions elsewhere in North America could shape whether Alberta meets its goal of capturing $100-billion of investment within five years.
Creig Antliff, a 75-year-old farmer near Calgary, said Beacon Data Centers Inc. wanted to buy his land for a natural gas plant to power an AI campus. The 1,494-megawatt project would supply a neighbouring hyperscale site, but the Antliffs were not easy to convince. In the United States, 46 states have a combined 575 active restrictions on development of such sites, as of Friday.
Latest updates
Alberta’s data centre boom faces fierce and growing opposition
The province is grappling with backlash against giant projects with uncertain benefits Creig Antliff was eating lunch at his kitchen table when the shiny black SUV rolled up his driveway on a sunny Saturday morning in May. The 75-year-old farmer and his wife, Jeannie, live on an organic farm in a rural community about 30 minutes outside downtown Calgary. He’d been expecting to hear from some out-of-town businessmen, so figured he knew who the visitors were. Few Indus locals drove “high-end” cars like that, he noted. And Mr. Antliff, a fourth-generation farmer, had found himself in the middle of something bigger than his community. Two men stepped out of the SUV, and he invited them inside for a cup of coffee. The visitors were from Beacon Data Centers Inc., and they’d come to discuss their plans for a natural gas plant nearby. The 1,494-megawatt project would create enough power to fuel a city the size of Edmonton. It would be visible from the window of the kitchen where the three men sat. Its purpose: to power a neighbouring hyperscale data centre used for artificial intelligence. Creig Antliff fixes a fence on his farm near the hamlet of Indus. Beyond him lies the vast area where Beacon wants to build a natural gas plant to power a hyperscale data centre. Leah Hennel/The Globe and Mail The visitors started talking about the benefits of the project. Then Jeannie walked into th.