Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Wednesday that Meta will build its first artificial-intelligence data centre in Canada within Sturgeon County [1].
The investment signals a major expansion of AI infrastructure into North America's prairie provinces and establishes a new industrial hub northeast of Edmonton [2].
The project involves a total investment of $13 billion [3]. While some reports cited a lower figure of $9 billion, the primary Canadian sources list the investment at the higher amount [3]. According to Reuters, this represents the largest data-centre project located outside the U.S. [4].
"This project will create thousands of jobs and bring millions of dollars in revenue to Alberta," Smith said [5].
The facility will feature a power capacity of one gigawatt [6]. To meet these energy requirements, a Meta spokesperson said the data centre will be powered by a natural-gas power plant [7].
The site in Sturgeon County was selected to support Meta's growing AI infrastructure needs [2]. The province expects the development to generate millions of dollars in new revenue, and create thousands of jobs [5].
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is scaling its global footprint to support the computational demands of generative AI [1]. This facility will serve as a primary node for those operations within the Canadian market [2].
“"This project will create thousands of jobs and bring millions of dollars in revenue to Alberta,"”
This deal highlights a strategic alignment between Meta's need for massive energy loads and Alberta's natural gas resources. By bypassing traditional electrical grids in favor of a dedicated gas plant, Meta secures the high-density power required for AI training while Alberta diversifies its economy beyond raw resource extraction into high-tech infrastructure.
