Companies want to build AI data centres in Canada faster than provinces can supply the electricity to run them. Here is a breakdown of what's happening as of August 26th, 2026.
Electrical capacity is measured in megawatts (MW); a gigawatt (GW) is 1,000 MW. The number only means something next to a local comparison. All of Alberta draws roughly 12,000 MW at its busiest moment. A single campus proposed near Saint John would need about 390 MW — more than a tenth of New Brunswick's entire electricity demand. One building, a tenth of a province.
A province cannot sell power it does not have. A large new customer either uses up existing surplus or requires new generation to be built, and building new generation costs far more per unit than running dams and plants that were paid off decades ago. That gap sits underneath almost every argument on this page.
There is also no national referee. Electricity is provincial jurisdiction, so there is no Canadian queue, no national cap and no meaningful national total. Seven provinces are making seven separate decisions.
If you have seen a dollar figure for Canada's data centre market, it came from one of five research houses — and they do not seem to agree with each other. Their estimates of the same national market in the same year run from USD 4.81 billion to USD 21.06 billion.
Each firm draws the boundary of "the market" somewhere different. Mordor states plainly that its numbers come from a proprietary estimation model.
So the rest of this page stays with quantities that can be checked against a public record: megawatts requested from a grid operator, contracts signed, applications filed at a city hall.
Before anyone builds a data centre, they have to ask the provincial grid operator for electricity — and those requests are documented. That queue is a far better demand signal than a market forecast, because a company has to attach its name, a specific site, and in British Columbia a cash deposit to every megawatt it asks for.
In every large province, the asking exceeds the supply. In Alberta the requests add up to more than everything the province draws at its busiest moment. Two cautions before reading the panels below: a peak-demand figure is a momentary maximum, while data centres want power around the clock, and the same developer often holds a place in more than one province's queue. These four numbers cannot be added into a national total.
In June 2025 Alberta's grid operator put a number on the ceiling: 1,200 MW was the most new large load the system could absorb without putting reliability at risk. To be in the running, a project needed a letter of support from its municipality, zoning approved or under way, at least 75 MW on a single site, an opening date in 2027 or 2028, and a connection that required no new transmission lines.
Fifteen projects from five developers cleared those tests, together asking for 4,800 MW. The whole 1,200 MW went to two of them, with contracts signed in October 2025. Everyone else received nothing — and neither winner got what it had asked for.
That framework is already history. A new regulation has replaced the cap with a different bargain: bring your own power plant and you move to the front of the line. Projects that don't are pushed back rather than refused outright.
Quebec did not cap the volume but rather changed the price. In February 2026 Hydro-Québec asked the province's energy regulator to create a separate rate for large data centres averaging 13¢ per kilowatt-hour, roughly double what large industrial customers pay today. It would apply automatically to every new customer above 5 MW, with a five-year transition for sites already connected. A second filing would raise the rate for cryptocurrency operations to 19.5¢.
The reasoning behind it is the clearest explanation in the country of why these special rates are appearing everywhere. Power from Hydro-Québec's existing dams costs about 3.5¢/kWh to produce. Power from anything built now costs about 11 to 12¢. Charging newcomers the old average price would mean existing customers quietly covering the cost of the new supply the newcomers require. A report filed with the regulator counted roughly 60 new large-customer rates introduced across North America in recent years, about 20 of them aimed at data centres, and found they are almost all built on that same principle.
The industry is fighting it. Six operators running 23 Quebec sites — including QScale, Vantage and Cologix — argue the rate is excessive and discriminatory. For facilities already connected it means moving from 6.82¢ to 13¢, a 91% increase, phased in over the grace period.
Because electricity is provincial jurisdiction, there is no national policy to describe. What there is instead is one shared direction of travel: the old rule that a utility connects industrial customers in the order they apply, on identical terms, is being replaced almost everywhere by choosing between them.
Timing matters more here than the design of any single scheme. Only British Columbia's rules are both finished and running, and it has not yet announced who won. Ontario is still consulting, Quebec's new price is being litigated, and Alberta's most-quoted rule has already been superseded by a newer one. Open any province below to see what it actually does.
The tightest rules in the country, and the only ones written as a fixed number. For the two years from 1 February 2026, BC Hydro may release no more than 100 MW for ordinary data centres and no more than 300 MW for AI data centres — 400 MW in total. From February 2028 both limits are halved. Instead of queuing, companies bid: a 10 MW minimum, a 145 MW maximum per site, and a deposit of $25,000 for every megawatt requested. Fifteen applications arrived asking for close to 800 MW, about twice what is on offer. Bids are judged on price alongside economic and community benefit, data sovereignty and environmental impact, including job creation and First Nations involvement. Mining, oil and gas, LNG, forestry, domestic hydrogen and manufacturing are shut out of this particular process.
Alberta has moved the furthest and changed its mind the fastest. A 2025 law made the grid operator's duty to connect new customers conditional on keeping the system reliable. The regulation that followed scrapped the 1,200 MW cap and replaced it with a trade: a project that arrives with its own generation attached gets processed first, and one that doesn't is pushed down the list rather than refused. A proposed bridging rule would let self-supplying projects borrow up to 1,600 MW from the grid while their own plant is under construction — but only if that plant burns natural gas. Renewables and storage would not qualify. Alberta's grid operator has said publicly that the arrangement will raise costs for other electricity customers, because adding demand without adding supply pushes prices up. The province has chosen speed and accepted the bill.
The most thorough framework of the big four, and the least far along. Ontario has passed the law that lets cabinet set conditions a data centre must satisfy before it is allowed to plug in; the conditions themselves were posted for public comment on 13 August 2026, with the window closing 12 September. Projects would be scored on three things: economic benefit, including jobs and Canadian supply chains; data security and Canadian control of sensitive information, with a stated preference for Canadian-owned facilities; and community benefit, including cooling systems that recirculate water rather than consuming it.
The second half of the proposal is about billing, and it is worth understanding. Ontario's largest customers can cut their electricity costs substantially by powering down during the five busiest hours of the year. The cost of running the system does not disappear when they do — it lands on everyone else's bill. Putting new data centres in their own rate class would close that option to them. Existing facilities keep the current arrangement, but must attest that they are not mining cryptocurrency.
Hydro-Québec's proposed 13¢/kWh rate for data centres above 5 MW, and 19.5¢ for cryptocurrency operations, sits with the provincial energy regulator and is being contested by an industry coalition. It follows two cabinet orders published 28 January that instructed the regulator to create separate customer categories for the two sectors. Price is not the only gate: any project above 5 MW still has to be selected by the government under a process that runs independently of the rate question. The market has already reacted — QScale has cited tighter control and longer waits for grid access in Quebec as part of its reason for expanding into Ontario.
On 16 March 2026 Bell Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan announced a 300 MW data centre in the Rural Municipality of Sherwood outside Regina, opening in stages with the first expected in the first half of 2027 and SaskTel as a go-to-market partner. No cap, scoring system or allocation process has been published — this is a bilateral arrangement rather than a framework.
A proposed large-scale campus in the Spruce Lake and Lorneville area near Saint John would need roughly 390 MW — more than a tenth of the province's entire current electricity demand. The plan involves about 190 MW of natural gas generation built on site and about 200 MW drawn from NB Power, with VoltaGrid and Beacon Data Centers behind it. Objections have covered emissions, whether NB Power can serve the load at all, the effect on residential bills, wetlands and groundwater, and how few permanent jobs the site would create relative to the power it would use. The government has refused calls for a moratorium while saying it is considering future limits and approval criteria.
A proposed large-scale AI data centre on roughly 141 hectares south of Winnipeg was rejected by the provincial government in June 2026. Premier Wab Kinew cited farmland, environmental effects and the impact on rural communities.
Sources: ERO 026-0853 [10]; Hydro-Québec [15]; La Presse [25]; McCord Investments [11]; Reynar IT [31]; BLG [33][34]; BC Hydro [14]; PR Newswire [17]; Capital Hill Group [42]; BC Hydro 2026 Call for Demand Q&A [35]; Business in Vancouver [36]; The Energy Mix [32].
Servers live in racks — cabinets of equipment, roughly the footprint of a fridge. What AI changed is how much electricity a single one of those cabinets draws. Large operators are now fitting buildings for racks above 50 kW, AI training clusters run past 150 kW, and one Quebec campus advertises support for cabinets above 400 kW. Operators are also installing up to 50% more electrical capacity than they currently need, on the assumption that the next generation of chips will want it.
Above roughly 50 kW, blowing cold air across the chips stops working. The heat has to be carried away by liquid instead. Actually the switch was forced by physics rather than by environmental policy, but it has two side effects. Closed-loop liquid systems draw far less municipal water — TELUS says up to 90% less at its planned B.C. sites, a claim local watershed groups have publicly questioned. And the heat coming out the far end is now hot enough to be worth something.
An air-cooled hall produces exhaust at 35 to 45°C, too tepid to be much use. A liquid-cooled building produces water at 70 to 80°C, hot enough to feed a district heating network directly. Waste heat stops being a disposal cost and becomes a product — and provinces have begun awarding credit for it when they decide who gets to connect.
The QScale Q01 campus south of Quebec City is the country's working example. At full build across eight phases it will run 96 MW of computing inside a 142 MW total power envelope, fed by its own 266 MVA substation. Two phases are finished, each with 40,000 square feet of floor space against 320,000 when complete. The waste heat is piped to greenhouses within a 10 km radius: the City of Lévis issued the building permit for the first one in mid-2025, and QScale's president has said 95% of the building's heat is now being carried away and reused.
Sources: QScale [19]; SustainableBiz Canada [53]; Baxtel [54]; Canada Energy Regulator [49]; The Logic [26].
"Sovereign" computing means capacity that sits physically in Canada under Canadian control, so that government, health, banking, insurance and research data does not have to leave the country to be processed. It is one of six pillars in AI for All, the national AI strategy released on 4 June 2026.
The strategy's own analysis is that Canadian businesses will need about 5.5 GW of AI computing by 2030, much of it supplied by large foreign platforms serving customers on both sides of the border. Against that, the partnerships Ottawa is finalising would deliver 850 MW under Canadian control by 2030, scaling to as much as 2.3 GW — roughly 15% at the 2030 target.
That is a decision rather than a shortfall. Canada is not trying to build the whole thing at home; it is trying to own the part that has to stay home, while continuing to welcome foreign investment where it brings clear domestic benefit. Alongside it sit a commitment to a public supercomputer by 2031 and $700 million in affordable computing for smaller firms.
Data centres are good for construction trades, tax rolls and provincial GDP. Per megawatt consumed, permanent employment is not high.
Bell's Saskatchewan announcement is the clearest disclosed example. A 300 MW facility outside Regina: at least 800 trades and engineering jobs while it is being built, at least 80 full-time positions once it is running, and up to 750 further community jobs projected. Roughly ten construction jobs for every permanent one. RBC's own analysis makes the same point from the other direction, noting that data centres contribute more to GDP than sectors such as manufacturing and transport while employing fewer people.
Slate Asset Management asked to split off a parcel of the former Stelco lands for what its planning submission described as a hyperscale and enterprise data centre campus. On 4 June 2026 Hamilton's Committee of Adjustment turned the application down unanimously, after a hearing city staff described as possibly a record volume of participation for a single agenda item. The objections were noise, land use, water supply and electricity consumption.
Slate has appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, the provincial body that hears land use disputes. Council voted on 24 June 2026 for a temporary pause on data centre development, then stepped back from a full moratorium. The question underneath is whether a city can refuse a use of a resource the province controls, and other municipalities are watching Hamilton to find out.
Sources: CBC News [47][65][67]; Ontario Construction News [63]; The Public Record [64]; Canada's National Observer [66].
Every large province has moved away from connecting customers in the order they apply, and toward choosing between them — British Columbia by auction, Alberta by demanding self-supply, Quebec by price and ministerial selection, Ontario by a proposed approval test. Provinces that publish how they score will manage this better than provinces that decide behind closed doors.
Ontario is consulting, Quebec is in front of a regulator, and Alberta's most-quoted rule has already been replaced. Only British Columbia's regime is both final and running, and it has not announced results. Anyone treating this landscape as fixed will misjudge both the timeline and the risk.
Roughly 20 North American jurisdictions have converged on one principle: a large new customer should pay what its own supply costs to build, not the cheaper average of assets paid off long ago. Alberta has taken the opposite path deliberately, accepting higher costs for other customers in exchange for connecting faster. Both are defensible. Neither is free, and the difference will show up on household bills within the decade.
Ontario has written water-recirculating cooling into its proposed community test, British Columbia scores environmental benefit, and the projects in Lévis and downtown Vancouver were designed around reusing heat from the start. A building that treats its heat as garbage will increasingly find that counted against it when it applies to connect.
We tried hard to keep every fact on this page verifiable, and used AI heavily in assembling it — if you see any error, please let us know. This page cites 52 sources, all listed in full in the section below. Values are reproduced as published, and where a source gives a range, the range is shown rather than a convenient midpoint.
Provincial queue figures were recorded on different dates and count different things, so they are shown one province at a time and never added up. The market-size estimates cannot be reconciled with one another, so they appear as a spread rather than a consensus. And exactly one number on this page is our own arithmetic rather than a published figure — megawatts per permanent job, in Section 08 — which is flagged where it appears.
These are the 52 sources the figures on this page actually rest on. The bracketed markers in each chart caption point here, so any number above can be traced to the government release, regulatory filing, company announcement or peer-reviewed paper it came from.
Numbering follows the underlying report so the markers line up; the gaps are references in that report supporting material this page does not use. All links accessed August 2026 and open in a new tab.
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