For all the backlash data centres have garnered in Canada over the last year, the reality is relatively little construction activity has happened on the ground, at least compared to the frenzy of new projects south of the border.
But if data centres are a proxy of Canada’s wider investment in AI, a shift may be under way.
In June, Canadian imports of computers and peripherals, a category that includes the guts of data centres like servers and processors, surged 88 per cent from the year before to a record-high $3-billion, Statistics Canada reported this week.
That still leaves Canada well behind the U.S., where the same category of imported goods began to lift off in 2024 as the AI boom took hold, but in just one month Canada closed the gap significantly.
The rush by importers in Canada to secure tech equipment follows an uptick in business investment in computers and peripherals equipment in the first quarter, and signals “the economy is starting to see some benefits” from the AI infrastructure build-out, according to a note written by Stephen Brown, chief North America economist with Capital Economics. “This investment doesn’t directly boost GDP much given the offsetting drag from net trade due to higher imports, but it provides evidence of increased AI-related activity.”
It’s not clear which particular projects may be behind the import surge, but in July, Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook, said it broke ground on a new one-gigawatt data centre north of Edmonton, its first in Canada and Meta’s largest facility outside the U.S.
What to know about Ottawa’s push for more data centres
According to Aterio, a Vancouver-based company that tracks data centre projects around the world, just shy of 200 projects have been announced and 15 are under construction, though not all are intended for AI use.
Even as some projects move ahead, however, resistance to data centre construction is mounting. Last week Mississauga’s city council backed a motion to pause data centre development to “evaluate impacts on municipal infrastructure, economic activity, the environment, noise levels, energy and water consumption.”
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Originally published by The Globe and Mail - Business.