Meta is building its first data center in Canada, and it's putting a massive bet on fossil fuels to power the AI boom. The company announced plans for a new facility in Sturgeon County, Alberta — its 33rd data center globally and the first north of the border — with an investment of over 13 billion Canadian dollars (roughly $10 billion USD). The 1GW campus is designed to support Meta's AI training workloads and core products.
During peak construction, the project is expected to support more than 3,000 jobs, with over 300 permanent roles once operational. Meta is also kicking in about 60 million CAD for local road and water infrastructure and community projects.
But here's the catch: the data center will be powered by a new natural gas plant. The accompanying "Greenlight Power Center" — because nothing says green like methane — will have a capacity of 932MW and is slated to come online in the second half of 2030. To cool the servers, Meta says it's using a closed-loop system that won't draw directly from local water sources.