Meta has broken ground on a C$13bn (US$9.16bn) hyperscale data centre campus in Sturgeon County, Alberta, marking the company's first facility in Canada. The 1GW site becomes Meta's 33rd global data centre location and will support AI workloads alongside the corporate products used by billions of people worldwide.
A Landmark Canadian Investment
The development is expected to employ 3,000 construction workers at peak build, with more than 300 permanent roles once the facility is operational. Meta says the site was chosen after prioritizing energy access, infrastructure readiness, and regional talent availability, calling the project one of the largest technology infrastructure investments in Canadian history.
Energy Infrastructure Coordination
Meta worked with Greenlight Limited Partnership, AltaLink, Capital Power, and the Alberta Electric System Operator to plan grid integration years ahead of the facility going live. The company is funding all energy costs tied to the data centre and financing new power generation capacity alongside grid upgrades, with the site set to match its electricity consumption with 100% clean and renewable energy.
"We're fully funding new generation and grid infrastructure in Alberta, which improves the reliability for all consumers."— Rachel Peterson, Vice President of Data Centers, Meta
Water Conservation Systems
The campus uses a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system combined with dry cooling technology, a design Meta says eliminates operational water consumption within the cooling loop itself. Onsite water use will be limited to domestic functions, fire protection, and equipment maintenance, and Meta will fund all water and wastewater infrastructure costs while publishing annual withdrawal data for transparency.
Meta projects the facility's annual operational water use will be less than a typical regional golf course, and the company is targeting water-positive status by 2030 across its owned global operations.