This article dives into the most significant ongoing and upcoming data centre projects, the skills fueling this transformation, and what the future holds for Canada’s role as a digital infrastructure powerhouse.

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Data centre construction crew in Canada

How are locations selected for data centre construction in Canada?

  • Strategic locations: An important consideration is data centre proximity to users, government, or energy-related points.
  • Land availability: Access to cheap land located to dense populations is a significant factor.
  • Permitting & Regulations: Certain data centre construction locations are more business-friendly than others, while construction permit approvals vary significantly depending on the locale.
  • Proximity to high population: Data centre owners will typically target high density areas, although large AI data centres may be located further away from population centres due to higher latency acceptance and land price concerns.
  • Weather: Canada boasts lower energy costs for cool equipment due to lower temperatures in winter, especially compared to the United States.
  • Access to cheap power: Quebec and B.C. generate cheaper renewable energy (predominantly through hydroelectric) which helps offset resourcing demands.
  • Data sovereignty: The push for countries to protect the data of their users may spur data centre construction in Canada. However, due to laws like the U.S. CLOUD Act, a US-owned cloud provider operating in Canada may still be compelled by US law enforcement to release data without the user’s consent.
  • Tax incentives: Federal and provincial subsidies have a huge influence on any economic investment decision.
  • Access to talent: This is where the Canadian sector needs help. Data centre construction is an immature sector in Canada that relies heavily on a limited global talent, despite rising demand.

Considerations in data centre construction

  • Battery storage: Increased capacity of battery storage combined with access to intermittent renewable energy sources may help offset resourcing demands.
  • Modularity / Scalability: The ability to expand a data centre according to demand required by clients is becoming a key differentiating factor as industry plans construction projects.
  • Water use for cooling: New data centres are moving to a closed loop system where they reuse water for cooling (as opposed to evaporative cooling). A data centre may also use an air-to-“coolant liquid” heat pump system coolant distribution unit (CDU), designed for liquid cooled racks. However, not all racks need to be liquid cooled and most centres will still need some air-cooled racks. New data centres using liquid cooling will almost always be connected to a primary chilled water loop (water to CDU)
  • Carbon Capture: Natural gas-fired generation with carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) offers a reliable and dispatchable low-carbon power source to meet rapidly growing data centre electricity demand for regions that don’t have renewable energy sources.
  • Nuclear SMRs: It is possible that in the future, small-scale nuclear reactors could be used as an energy source. This is pending the completion of several ongoing infrastructure projects.
  • Water vs. Energy Trade Offs: Water Use Effectiveness (WUE) and PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) measures will matter more as respective resources become more scarce. Industry refers to this as the “water-energy nexus.”

Is Canada at capacity or over-capacity for data centres?

There are some legitimate claims that as processing power and efficiency increase, Canada and the international community may be faced with over-supply of data centres. However, the unprecedented growth in AI is predicted to rapidly create high demand.

Other factors which may drive data centre construction in Canada include a push for data sovereignty. Canadian users and Canadian business owners may prefer to house their data in Canadian data centres. For example, a Canadian business owner may need to build data centre assets in British Columbia when historically they relied on data centres in Washington State, south of the border.

Where the Action Is: Key Data Centre Construction Projects Across Canada

Explore key data centre construction projects in provinces across Canada.

Alberta: Ground Zero for Hyperscale AI

Alberta is becoming North America’s hyperscale AI heartland, thanks to land availability, streamlined permitting, and access to both grid and natural gas-powered generation.

  • Beacon AI Centres: Leading the charge with five 400 MW AI-focused hubs near Edmonton, Langdon, High River, Keephills, Leduc County, and Fort Saskatchewan. All set for energization by 2027. A massive 1,400 MW “Langdon II” campus is also proposed for 2037.
  • eStruxture CAL‑3: A 90 MW AI-optimized data centre near Calgary (Balzac), with service expected by late 2026.
  • Bitdeer Fox Creek: A 99 MW crypto and AI campus with dedicated gas-fired generation, operational by Q4 2026.
  • Captus Glenwood: A 100 MW data centre co-located with on-site generation, targeting 2027.
  • Crusoe/Kalina Sites: Three campuses totalling 420 MW, featuring natural gas and carbon-capture tech, expected by mid-2027.
  • Capital Power Genesee: Delivering up to 1,500 MW (1,000 MW plus 500 MW expansion) near a power generation facility.
  • Others in Queue: Projects like Fort Saskatchewan’s 1,800 MW “GLDC” and Keephills’ 1,864 MW site reflect Alberta’s future planning pipeline.

Unlike other provinces, Alberta offers no subsidies but provides a deregulated power market with no carbon tax on data centre electricity use, too. Alberta relies on a “data centre concierge” program to expedite approvals and infrastructure readiness.

Ontario & Quebec: AI Investment and Green Power

Ontario and Quebec are home to the country’s most balanced approach for data centre construction, combining green energy, public-sector investment, and strong connectivity.

  • Cohere & CoreWeave AI Centre (Toronto): Canada’s largest AI facility to date, backed by C$240 million in federal funding and powered by NVIDIA GPUs, coming online in 2025.
  • CPP Investments (Cambridge): Funding a 54 MW hyperscale expansion with C$225 million in capital investment.
  • IBM Montreal Cloud MZR: A multi-zone cloud region designed for redundancy and AI services, operational in early 2025.
  • eStruxture Expansion: Now owned by Fengate for C$1.8 billion, with 15 centres in Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto.
  • Vantage Montreal II (QC4): Expanding to 50 MW across Tier III+ facilities with hydro-powered cooling systems.
  • Telus Nationwide Expansion: Investing C$70 billion in infrastructure through 2030, including two new AI-focused data centres.

These projects benefit from hydroelectric power, low PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) designs (a proxy for better performance and reliability), and robust fiber connectivity. Montreal, in particular, is emerging as a green data centre capital.

British Columbia: Home of the AI Supercluster

  • Bell Canada AI Fabric: A 500 MW, six-site supercluster powered entirely by hydroelectric energy. This is Canada’s largest AI compute initiative to date. It’s designed to support next-generation workloads like LLMs and real-time inference at scale.

Talent Powering the Boom: In-Demand Skills

As Canada’s digital backbone expands, demand for mission-critical expertise has skyrocketed. Key roles include:

Role Focus
Project Managers Construction oversight, timelines, and integration
Electrical & Mechanical Engineers Power distribution, cooling, and redundancy
IT Infrastructure Engineers AI compute racks, cloud environments, and networking
Commissioning Technicians Testing, uptime optimization, and handoff
Sustainability Experts Energy-efficient design, free-air cooling, hydro integration
Compliance Analysts Permitting, foreign ownership, and environmental standards

Cross-discipline knowledge blending real estate, electrical systems, and digital compute is especially prized. There’s growing need for expertise in high-density AI workloads, GPU infrastructure, and power/cooling automation.

Market Trends: The Data Behind the Growth

  • Market Size: Valued at USD 3.34 B in 2025, Canada’s data centre construction market is on pace to reach USD 5.7 B by 2030, with an 11% CAGR.
  • Project Pipeline: Over 2 GW in active builds across Canada. Ontario and Alberta alone have ~26 GW of long-term planned capacity.
  • Government Incentives: C$15 billion in proposed green AI infrastructure incentives and direct federal investment in landmark AI data centres.
  • Global Context: North America has over USD 412 billion in pipeline data centre construction; Canada is among the fastest-growing sub-markets.
  • Colocation & Hyperscale: More than 20 colocation builds underway, with Calgary holding over 25% of the national colocation capacity pipeline.

Looking Ahead: Canada’s Hyperscale Future

Canada’s strategic mix of clean power, AI adoption, talent pool, and pro-business policies position it as a global leader in digital infrastructure. The next five years will likely see:

  • Dominance in AI-ready hyperscale campuses
  • Rapid development of green edge and regional colocation hubs
  • Rising influence of pension funds and infrastructure investors
  • Shift toward AI-specific rack and cooling technologies
  • Continued focus on carbon-neutral and hydro-integrated designs

Data Centre Construction is the Future of Canadian Infrastructure

Canada’s data centre transformation is not incremental, it’s exponential. Provinces like Alberta and British Columbia are spearheading the AI age with gigawatt-scale campuses, while Ontario and Quebec leverage public investment and green power to scale fast and sustainably.

With more than 30x current capacity in the pipeline, Canada is staking its claim as a top-tier digital superpower. Whether you’re a stakeholder in infrastructure, talent, investment, or technology: the time to pay attention to Canada is now.

If you’re interested in working on any of these projects, get in touch with us by registering with Outpost Recruitment.

Drop us a note if you spot any inaccurate information or we’re missing a project. Email us at [email protected].