Ottawa’s vested interest in strengthening the artificial intelligence sector has been fuelling a wave of hyperscale data centre development across the country with many more projects being proposed, but communities are pushing back.
Hamilton is the first Canadian city to propose a city-wide moratorium, and while city council voted it down last week, local governments are facing similar community pressure to slow down new projects until environmental impacts, meaningful public consultation efforts and rising utility bills can be factored into decision-making processes.
This is a sentiment shared by a large majority of Canadians. In a survey by the Angus Reid Institute, 68 per cent of Canadians would oppose a large AI data centre being built within a few blocks of their home.
In this episode, Local Journalist Mia Johnson visits Scarborough residents living near Stack Infrastructure’s approved 56-megawatt mega-scale data centre at Birchmount Road and Danforth Avenue. Stack, the Denver-headquartered digital infrastructure company, is currently in the process of applying for an official building permit with the city of Toronto.