Meta announced on July 8, 2026 that it will invest more than US$9.1 billion to build its first AI data center in Canada. The facility goes in Sturgeon County, Alberta, and becomes Meta’s largest data center outside the United States.

The power plant will have one gigawatt of capacity — enough to power roughly 750,000 homes. A natural gas-fired plant built by a consortium including Pembina Pipeline will run it starting in the second half of 2030.

Jobs and Local Impact

Construction will support over 3,000 workers at peak. Once operational, more than 300 permanent jobs. Meta will spend approximately CAD $60 million on local infrastructure improvements around the site.

Sturgeon County sits north of Edmonton, putting the data center close to existing power infrastructure and potential customer base.

Cooling and Sustainability

The facility uses a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system with dry cooling. This means operational water use is zero for the cooling system itself — water is used only for domestic needs, fire safety, and equipment maintenance.

For a data center, that’s a big deal. Cooling eats power. Smart cooling design keeps long-term costs down.

Why Canada, Why Now

Meta is racing to secure AI compute capacity. Databricks, OpenAI, and other companies are doing the same. Securing land and power in a stable, developed country with clean energy access makes sense. Canada offers stable regulation and proximity to U.S. markets.

AI infrastructure is becoming as strategic as oil fields were fifty years ago.