By David Boles, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette
August 10, 2026
Meta, the technology giant that owns Facebook and Instagram, is investing $13 billion in a data centre in Sturgeon County.
The Alberta government says the project will create 3,000 construction jobs and 300 on-site jobs at the massive build just outside Edmonton, just east of St. Albert.
“It is about Alberta’s future and Canada’s place in a world that is rapidly changing,” said Sturgeon County mayor Alanna Hnatiw.
Part of the project will see a $4.6-billion investment in a power plant.
“Alberta’s well on the way to becoming a central player at the heart of the AI revolution,” said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
AI data centres can use significant amounts of water for cooling and power generation, prompting critics to raise concerns about their water use. The province addressed those concerns in announcing the project.
“Protecting Alberta’s water resources has been a key consideration in the project’s design,” said Smith.
The province has promised that the required water usage will need to be approved under the terms of the provincial Water Act.
The power needs for the data centre, to be built on 1,750 acres of land, will be met by a $4.6-billion natural gas-fired power plant announced last year.
The project will be built by Pembina Pipeline Corp., along with partners Morgan Stanley Infrastructure and Kineticor Asset Management.
Meta says the project will be the company’s first data centre in Canada.
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It’s not the first project of its kind in Alberta, as the town of Olds announced in January that Synapse Data Centre Inc. plans to invest $10 billion over two years to build a one-gigawatt data centre.
