New data centres are being announced across North America to supply power and compute for cloud services and artificial intelligence platforms. Canada already has hundreds of data centres, with counts rising when planned projects are included. The Canada Energy Regulator estimates data centres could require up to 12 gigawatts of power by 2050, comparable to peak demand in Alberta. Businessman Kevin O’Leary’s ventures have backed major data-centre projects, including Alberta’s “Wonder Valley” and a Utah project called “Stratos.” Wonder Valley was initially promoted as a world-leading AI data-centre industrial park on about 7,000 acres, though it is no longer expected to set a world record. It is still expected to be Canada’s largest data centre by a wide margin, supported by Alberta’s cold climate and skilled workforce.
"New data centres are being announced all over North America-and beyond. Some provide power at a smaller scale, but others (sometimes referred to as "hyperscale") provide the necessary power for large-scale cloud service providers, like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. These, in turn, provide the necessary compute for artificial intelligence platforms."
"The University of Calgary counted 239 data centres across Canada at the moment, including 105 in Ontario, thirty-five in Quebec, and twenty-two in Alberta. If we want to include planned projects not yet operational, this number goes up to 309, according to reporting by The Logic published last month. According to the Canada Energy Regulator, Canada's data centres alone could demand up to twelve gigawatts (GW) of power by 2050-which, for context, is the amount of power used by the whole province of Alberta at peak times."
"In 2024, his venture capital firm O'Leary Ventures announced the creation of a new data centre in Alberta, called "Wonder Valley"-likely a play on his "Mr. Wonderful" moniker. Then, this year, O'Leary announced a second data centre project in Utah, called "Stratos" (and sometimes, confusingly, called "Wonder Valley" as well)."
"When Wonder Valley was announced in 2024, it was being touted as the world's largest AI data centre industrial park-at an estimated 7,000 acres. But other projects have had the same idea, and Wonder Valley is no longer on track to set a world record. Still, we can expect it to be the largest data centre in Canada by a significant margin. O'Leary cites Alberta's "ideal cold-weather climate," "highly skilled labour force," "pro-"
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