By Andrew Pohlod | Transcribed from Facebook

Communities across Alberta right now are in open revolt against hyperscale AI data centres—and they’re starting to get the upper hand.

All right, let’s start with Olds.

In January, Premier Danielle Smith announced on social media that Synapse Data Centre—a company incorporated the same month—was going to build the largest data centre in Canada in this small agricultural town.

It was going to be a $10-billion project with two million square feet of computing infrastructure—about 34 football fields’ worth. It would be powered by a 1.4-gigawatt natural-gas facility made up of 30 turbines and 600 backup diesel generators. The facility would generate enough electricity to power the entire city of Calgary and sit on 300 acres—10% the size of the town itself—next to 2,000 homes.

A 42-year-old business owner and mother of three named Bek MacIntosh looked at those numbers and started asking questions. She formed a group called Little Town Big Data. She started a documentary. She held town halls.

She organized 265 residents to stand up in a unity line across the road from the proposed site to show people its scale in human terms.

She got called a terrorist and a dumb blonde by data centre proponents.

She got threatened with lawsuits, and she kept going.

In March, the Alberta Utilities Commission rejected Synapse’s first application for the power plant due to deficiencies. Synapse reapplied using AI to fill out the paperwork. Over 1,500 citizens registered to participate in the regulatory hearing.

On August 17, the AUC rejected Synapse’s power application entirely, ruling that the commission was not persuaded that the specific location was in the public interest.

And the $10-billion project in Olds is dead.

But here’s what happened next.

The Alberta government finally started holding a series of town halls to explain its data centre strategy to Albertans.

The first one was in Lacombe on August 19. Tech Minister Nate Glubish showed up to tout the economic windfall that they say these facilities are going to bring. Not a single person who made it to the microphone offered an endorsement. He was booed, jeered, and badgered for the entire event.

The second town hall was the following night in Redwater, where Meta has announced a $13-billion data centre project. Glubish was peppered with profanity. He was booed when he said he cares deeply about the province.

The province currently has 60 applications for hyperscale data centre projects under review. Premier Smith has actively courted the industry with what she calls “concierge service” and access to cheap natural gas.

The concerns that these communities have—and that we all have—are real, and they’re specific.

These centres are not nondescript warehouses. They are industrial facilities with constant humming, lights, diesel generators, and water-intensive cooling systems, and they create heat-island effects, raising local temperatures.

Originally posted to facebook.com/share/v/1BoqA8QTrk