Meta Platforms will soon start construction on an AI-focused data centre campus in Sturgeon County, about 35 kilometres north of Edmonton, marking Alberta's first major success in its quest to attract $100 billion in data centre investment. The gigawatt-scale facility, the largest data centre in Canada and Meta's first in the country, will create 3,000 construction positions and support 300 jobs once operational.
Origins of the Quest
The opportunity for data centre investment in Alberta began in November 2021, when Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced it would build three data centres in the Calgary area. This initial investment sparked broader interest and raised the possibility of larger, energy-intense centres needed for artificial intelligence development.
"When AWS originally landed in Alberta, we developed a great relationship over time and they were the ones that flagged for us that the industry was going to be facing huge demand on this AI-compute product," recalled Rick Christiaanse, former CEO of Invest Alberta, the Crown corporation tasked with attracting new investment. "The industry was going to have to build triple the amount of data centres that they had already built by that time, and there was going to be significant demand."
Building Momentum
Significant momentum built over the past 24 months. Alberta Technology Minister Nate Glubish said his conversations with Meta began after the province assembled a working group of ministers and departments in 2024 to develop a road map to bring data centres to Alberta.
"It was the summer of 2024, that was when I first met with the global data centre team at Meta's offices in San Francisco in the Bay area, and made the initial pitch for how Alberta has all of the building blocks of what they need in order to be successful," Glubish said. "That was the beginning of our conversations . . . and we've been working with them ever since."
Impact and Future Prospects
The announcement on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, confirmed Meta's $13 billion investment in Sturgeon County. The facility will be AI-focused and is expected to accelerate interest in the province, attracting further investment from other hyperscalers and data centre developers.
"We expect it will accelerate interest in the province and help attract further investment," said Angela Adam of eStruxture Data Centers, which is building a 90-megawatt, AI-focused facility north of Calgary. The groundwork assembled during this period should help pave the way for more developments to arrive in Alberta, according to industry experts.
