AI data centres are coming to Alberta. Is the province ready?

Tech Minister Nate Glubish addresses concerns and explains why Alberta should support the rapidly growing industry.

Nate Glubish on Facebook

Author: Clayton DeMaine

Alberta’s tech minister is advocating for the province to allow the construction of AI Data centres in industrial zones. In an exclusive interview with Juno News, Nate Glubish addresses several major concerns that Canadians and Albertans have about AI data centres.

Glubish spoke with Juno News, making the case why Alberta should lead the way on developing AI data centres, addressing several common concerns community members have about the sites including noise pollution, water consumption and other environmental concerns.

Glubish compared AI data centres to energy refineries in Alberta, noting that many people ask him about it stating that refineries add value from the provinces raw natural resources and can be exported as finished products for higher value to the rest of the world.

“Ultimately that’s what data centers are. Think of them like digital refineries,” he said. “We take the natural gas, we upgrade it and add value to it and create electricity. Take the electricity, we upgrade it and add value to it and create intelligence, and we export that intelligence through fiber to every region on the planet.”

Glubish said AI data centres represent a massive opportunity for Alberta to create new markets globally using Alberta’s natural gas resources.

“Instead of just shipping the raw natural gas, we’re now shipping a much higher value finished product through fiber to the rest of the world,” he said. “This is an opportunity for us to diversify our economy by creating this new technological infrastructure. It’s an opportunity for us to generate significant new royalty revenues and new tax revenues to help fund vital services like healthcare, education, and public safety. And it’s creating jobs and attracting investment.”

He said the new projects are completely privately funded and won’t cost “a dime” of Alberta taxpayers money as data centre builders are made to front the entirety of costs including infrastructure needed to connect the sites to the energy grid or build their own power generation.

“Alberta already has what the world needs, which is abundant energy and a business environment where you can get things done,” Glubish said.

He’s heard many concerns from Albertans about the sites however though he says most of the concerns are based on examples of “irresponsibly done” data centre projects in the U.S.

“They see examples where there were tons of subsidies and tax credits given, you know, billions of dollars of tax breaks given. They’ve seen hundreds of millions of dollars of transmission infrastructure in the grid that were subsidized by local ratepayers to attract these deals, and as a result, their power bills went up and the reliability of their grid went down,” he said.

“Those are objectively bad outcomes, and of course, folks are right to be concerned about that. We would not want that to happen in Alberta either.”

Glubish said that the United Conservative Party government in Alberta have studied case studies in the U.S., looked at what went wrong and designed a regulatory framework for the province that is both fair and competitive, and “clear to ensure those kinds of things can’t happen here.”

He noted that in a recent deal made between Meta and the province to build a centre in Sturgeon County, the Alberta industrial heartland, Meta is footing the bill and will be the largest ratepayers.

“Since they’re paying for all the infrastructure, every dollar that they pay into the transmission grid offsets the amount that other Albertans have to pay for transmission charges,” he said. “You’ll end up seeing transmission charges go down by an average of six per cent for all Alberta ratepayers because of that project. Because we took the time to do the homework, we looked at the jurisdictions that got this wrong, we did things differently here in Alberta, and we protected Alberta’s interests. “

When asked about common concerns about data centers such as loud humming that can be heard by from outside the facility, large amounts of water consumption and potential impact to the environment, Glubish said that’s why location is so important.

“That’s why the meta deal made so much sense,” he said. “It’s located in the middle of the Alberta industrial heartland, a significant region that is dedicated to heavy industrial development. This area was zoned for heavy industrial use for decades, and it is very far away from any residential subdivisions.”

He said the site is already where refineries and petrochemical plants exist.

This is ideally situated for what it is, and so our goal is to make sure that data centers that get built in Alberta are built responsibly and they’re built in locations that make sense.

Glubish also noted that he’s been to several data centres and said it was loud on the inside but from outside the centre, “you can’t hear anything,” do to technology that now exists to mitigate the noise.

“The question is just whether folks will use that technology, and the good news is is that we have very strict noise regulations in Alberta’s regulatory framework. every data center project is going to have to comply with those rules, and there’s no exceptions to that.”

He also assuaged concerns over the site’s excessive water consumption, stating that again these concerns come from data centres in the U.S. that use evaporative cooling systems where water is poured over heat exchangers.

“They evaporate the water and they turn it into steam and that’s how they dissipate the heat,” he said. “Those are some of the least efficient methods for for cooling infrastructure, and and they do use tons of water.”

“I would agree with Albertans who say that that’s objectively not the best path for Alberta. And the good news is is that modern data center architectures don’t use that technology anymore.”

He said data centres in Alberta will use liquid closed-loop systems where the water is filled once and it runs through the life of the project, circulating liquid compound that pulls the heat from the system and dissipates it into the ambient air around the data centre.

“This is this allows us to take our cold weather climate and, for once, turns that cold weather into an asset, not a liability,” he said. “When you look at the Meta site, this is a site that will use less water than the average golf course over the course of a year.”

He concluded by reassuring Albertans that its government “did its homework” and learning from the mistakes of other projects south of the border.

“Our commitment to Albertans is we’re going to ensure that data centre infrastructure that does get built here is built responsibly, and that every Albertan is going to benefit.”