Alberta’s data-centre boom faces fierce and growing opposition

Creig Antliff was eating lunch at his kitchen table when the shiny black SUV rolled up his driveway on a sunny Saturday morning in May.

The 75-year-old farmer and his wife, Jeannie, live on an organic farm in a rural community about 30 minutes outside downtown Calgary.

He’d been expecting to hear from some out-of-town businessmen, so figured he knew who the visitors were. Few Indus locals drove “high-end” cars like that, he noted. And Mr. Antliff, a fourth-generation farmer, had found himself in the middle of something bigger than his community.

Two men stepped out of the SUV, and he invited them inside for a cup of coffee.

The visitors were from Beacon Data Centers Inc., and they’d come to discuss their plans for a natural gas plant nearby. The 1,494-megawatt project would create enough power to fuel a city the size of Edmonton. It would be visible from the window of the kitchen where the three men sat. Its purpose: to power a neighbouring hyperscale data centre used for artificial intelligence.

The visitors started talking about the benefits of the project. Then Jeannie walked into the kitchen. The conversation quickly turned to Beacon’s true objectives for the visit, Mr. Antliff said. They wanted to buy their land.

But the Antliffs were not easy to convince.

On the way out the door, one of the visitors turned around and told Mr. Antliff to “think big.” He didn’t need to be told. He was thinking big – about how to stop them.

Landowners such as the Antliffs are being caught up in a race to capitalize on demand for data centres in Alberta, as the world’s technology giants drive a global gold rush. International spending on data centres that provide computing capacity for AI is expected to hit $1-trillion this year and mount to $2.1-trillion by 2028, according to a Bank of America forecast.

Alberta is determined be a top location for these massive investments. The province launched its data-centre strategy in late 2024, promising a “concierge service” to help projects come to fruition, and capture $100-billion of investment within five years. It is off to a strong start.

In total, there are 20 active data centres in Alberta, with another 149 announced and four under construction, according to data provider Aterio. Among Beacon’s planned projects are two power plants with co-located data centres: one in Indus, where the Antliffs live, and the other in Sturgeon County, northeast of Edmonton in Alberta’s industrial heartland.

This week, The Globe learned that Anthropic is in talks to lease Beacon’s Sturgeon County data centre campus, according to sources who weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The news follows another tech giant’s announcement in July, when Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Meta Platforms Inc. would build a $13-billion data centre campus just outside Edmonton, close to the Beacon site. The “historic win” was one of the largest private-sector investments in Canadian history, Ms. Smith declared. “Alberta is well on the way to becoming a central player at the heart of the AI revolution.”

But the backlash against data centres across North America has been fierce, and Alberta is not immune.

In the United States, 46 states have a combined 575 active restrictions on data-centre development, as of Friday. They include moratoriums, permanent bans, zoning restrictions and executive orders. As of mid-October, 24 state legislatures had tabled more bills to limit development. The matter is shaping up to be a key issue in the upcoming U.S. midterms.

In Canada and especially in Alberta, distrust and resentment is growing among First Nations, municipalities and local landowners who say they are overwhelmed by the speed of development, and the methods and money deployed to make it happen.

Many feel like they’re losing control of their territories and communities, powerless in the face of a rush propelled by the province and a seemingly insatiable demand for AI and the infrastructure needed to fuel it.

Mr. Antliff said he and his neighbours are being squeezed. “People are just feeling so up against the wall.”

In 2024, Alberta’s Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish attended a tech conference in California, where he heard the CEO of Anthropic discuss the billions of dollars the company spent on computing infrastructure to train its AI models.

Mr. Glubish sensed an opportunity. He decided to meet with tech companies to discuss building in Alberta, which has ample energy thanks to its large natural gas reserves. The provincial data-centre strategy was born by the end of the year, and it quickly tested the existing power system.

By April, 2025, developers were requesting grid connections for more than 11,000 megawatts of electricity for data centres – roughly enough to power another Alberta. Today, connection requests total 26,849 megawatts.

As one of the key figures in Alberta’s data-centre push, Mr. Glubish has faced backlash, including jeers and boos at town halls in the communities of Lacombe and Redwater in August.

“What you don’t see in those town halls is the thousands and thousands of people who are very supportive of this infrastructure, who understand that Albertans are going to benefit enormously,” he said in an interview with The Globe in September.

How many data centres will actually be completed in Alberta remains to be seen. AI-related tech stocks have pulled back this month amid growing concerns about the massive capital requirements for AI companies to complete their planned projects.

Last year, the province decided to prioritize projects that will generate their own power.

Beacon’s Indus project illustrates this shift. The Calgary-based company was founded in 2023 by Nadia Partners, which describes itself as a specialist AI investor headquartered in New York.

As recently as June, 2025, Beacon intended to rely on grid power and build a solar facility at its Indus site, according to documents filed with Rocky View County. But the company jettisoned that plan in favour of building a large-scale natural gas plant. The change was “necessary because of provincial policy and grid constraints,” the company said in filings with the Alberta Utilities Commission.

Beacon said its projects in Indus and Sturgeon County have undergone an extensive review process with the AUC. “We prioritize being a good neighbour–throughout and prior to the regulatory process, we have engaged with local landowners, listening to their perspectives and working together to address concerns,” said Lauren Armstrong, Beacon’s vice-president of corporate affairs, in an e-mail.

And that is how the shiny SUV came to arrive at the Antliffs’ house on May 9.

Concerned about emissions, noise and other factors, the couple was adamant that a natural gas power plant and co-located data centre shouldn’t happen in their community.

Under AUC rules, residents and First Nations who might be directly or adversely affected by the regulator’s decision can become intervenors, object in a public hearing and question applicants, and their concerns will be considered by the AUC.

The Antliffs were exercising these rights alongside other residents. They planned to file written objections to the AUC and cross-examine the developer at public hearings set to begin on Aug. 18.

The visitors in the SUV came by to try and change his mind, Mr. Antliff said.

A similar scene played out across the road in July at the property of two other intervenors.

Nancy Gowdy was tending her garden and her husband John was out with their cattle when an SUV pulled up the driveway. The visitors asked the Gowdys if they wanted to sell their land, located approximately one mile from the project, which would be visible from their front door.

The Gowdys and the Antliffs are both refusing to entertain the notion of selling. They’re not against development in general, said Ms. Gowdy – they just don’t understand why Beacon selected this location.

“There’s enough vacant land in the middle of nowhere,” Ms. Gowdy said. “Why would they have just plunked it right here?”

Mr. Gowdy’s family had farmed this land for four generations, she said. He’s lived on the same road his entire life. His children studied in the same high-school classroom he studied in.

Beacon’s consultation approach involves implementing mitigation measures to address concerns from landowners, Indigenous communities and others, Ms. Armstrong said. In Indus, that includes commitments related to noise, air quality and environmental protection, among other measures, she said. The company provided the AUC with an updated list of commitments to Indus residents on Aug. 28.

But the mitigation measures are not good enough, said Ms. Gowdy. She worries that living next to a power plant will not be healthy for them or their animals, and project construction (which will employ more than 1,300 people at each site, according to the developer’s website) will mean heavy vehicle traffic close to their homes.

The company can negotiate deals with landowners, but the terms are confidential. Beacon has not told landowners that they must withdraw as intervenors in an AUC proceeding as a condition of discussing a property deal, Ms. Armstrong added. “Where a landowner voluntarily sells property affected by a proposed project, that transaction may resolve the concerns that gave rise to the landowner’s participation in the regulatory proceeding,” she said.

Other landowners have sold to Beacon. The company purchased a parcel of land valued at $15.6-million for the Indus project from another family with deep roots in the area.

Records show the company also purchased land for its Heartland project, a nearly 320-acre proposed campus in Sturgeon County, from a local farming family, with a $39-million mortgage tied to the transaction. The gas plant and data-centre project would be immediately north of Meta’s data centre.

This is happening across the province, said Calgary real estate lawyer Paul Logan, a partner with Torys LLP.

A 20-year veteran in real estate law, Mr. Logan likens the current boom in land sales to the “gold rush mentality for renewables” roughly 10 to 15 years ago, when deals for huge swaths of property were not unheard of owing to the massive size of solar-power projects.

But steps are now happening in a different sequence.

It used to be that a project proponent would close a land deal first, then seek regulatory approvals. Now, instead of waiting, approvals are being sought during conditional periods before a land deal closes, Mr. Logan said.

Ms. Gowdy could sense the pressure and rush to move forward when Beacon arrived at her house with the offer to buy their land.

“They’re just trying to push these things through,” she said. “They were just trying to sell it and hoping they could convince people that it was the most wonderful thing to come to our neighbourhood.”

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Land sales are not the only financial offers on the table as companies look to expedite their Alberta projects.

One morning this past June, Kaylyn Buffalo, the consultation director at Samson Cree Nation, received an unanticipated phone call. It was a Beacon representative, she said, offering the Nation millions of dollars to drop their AUC intervenor status.

Samson Cree Nation’s traditional territory includes Beacon’s project northeast of Edmonton – the one being eyed by Anthropic.

Ms. Buffalo said the Nation did not entertain the offer and remains opposed to data centres. It’s hard to put a price on water and a healthy environment, she said.

“I told them directly that it’s not enough. We have quite a large nation. Over 10,000-plus people to take care of, so whatever number they put up to us, that’s like a drop in the bucket.”

Developers offering big financial sums is not unusual, she said. “That’s normally how they try and do business to get our support.”

Ms. Armstrong at Beacon said the company has been engaged with more than 20 Indigenous communities and incorporated their input into its development plans. The company has also signed “relationship agreements” with communities to address concerns and provide long-term benefits, including employment opportunities. “They complement, rather than replace, independent regulatory review,” she said. The terms of these agreements are confidential.

Ms. Armstrong said that Samson Cree Nation participated in the AUC’s regulatory proceeding, adding that the company will continue to engage with the community.

Negotiated settlements have been a dispute resolution tool in Alberta’s energy sector as far back as the start of the oil and gas boom, said Gavin Fitch, an environmental and energy-regulatory lawyer who has represented both developers and opponents of industrial power projects, including some connected to data centres.

The pressure to build quickly can make settlements even more attractive for developers seeking to avoid lengthy regulatory proceedings.

“If you’re in a hurry, then you tend to be prepared to do things that maybe you wouldn’t do if you had the luxury of time,” Mr. Fitch said.

Despite Samson Cree’s objections to the Beacon project, the AUC decided to approve the project on Oct. 23 after completing its regulatory process.

“On balance, the Commission finds that the benefits of the power plant outweigh its adverse effects and approval of the power plant, with conditions, is in the public interest,” the AUC wrote in its decision.

By that time, Samson Cree was the only intervenor left. All others – four First Nations and one local landowner – had withdrawn.

Ms. Buffalo understands the temptation to accept a settlement. In the 14 years she has consulted for Samson Cree, she has never been this busy; she is reviewing four separate data-centre projects, there are more than 30,000 unread e-mails in her inbox, and her staff of four is overwhelmed.

“Things that are really important to us can fall through the cracks,” she said.

The speed with which developers are moving means there is no time to build meaningful relationships with First Nations, said Graham Reeder, Samson Cree’s legal counsel.

Mr. Reeder has worked for various developers on large-scale projects requiring consultation and said it typically takes many months to years for a proposal to go from announcement to review.

But according to documents filed to the AUC, a Beacon representative first reached out to Samson Cree on Nov. 14 of last year under the AUC’s participant involvement program. The program is mandatory – it gives all persons effected by the proposal the opportunity to be informed of the application, voice their concerns and be heard.

There was a single preliminary meeting between the developer and the Nation on Dec. 15, according to AUC filings. The developer submitted its application four days later on Dec. 19.

This timeline “effectively concluded the pre-application consultation process” before the Nation had a meaningful opportunity to engage with the developer on its concerns, Samson Cree said in its written arguments to the AUC.

Beacon’s Indus project, near Calgary, is within the territory of the Kainai Nation (also known as the Blood Tribe). The Nation dropped its AUC intervenor status on Aug. 17 and is currently negotiating a settlement with Beacon, according to its consultation co-ordinator, Mike Oka.

The Nation had little choice but to step aside, he said. His community is too under-resourced to contest every project.

“We’d rather pick the fights that we can win,” he said.

The AUC is expected to issue a decision on the Indus project application by Dec. 8, after the commission finished receiving input in September.

Terri-Lee Oleniuk is an environmental and regulatory lawyer who was part of the counsel team for a power provider that is partnering with Meta, Greenlight Electricity, in its regulatory proceedings with the AUC.

She said that although dozens of data-centre developments have been proposed in Alberta, relatively few have progressed enough to say what’s now considered normal in the sector’s settlement practices.

“It’s hard to tell now because this is so, so new,” she said.

However, she said, deals often include more than financial compensation; some developers agree to reduce construction during certain times of the day, for example, or make changes to how they approach road access, traffic restrictions or dust control.

As Alberta draws in more investment from the AI sector, Ms. Oleniuk said she expects settlements to become more common.

Municipalities have also struggled to stay ahead of the data-centre rush.

Dominic Kazmierczak is executive director of community services at Rocky View County, where the Beacon Indus project would be located.

On June 17, 2025, the county approved the Beacon AI Hub Area Structure Plan – a broad overview of the proposed land use for the area. It seemed like a good opportunity at the time, Mr. Kazmierczak said.

When the county approved the plan, it anticipated that the data centre would be powered primarily by Alberta’s electrical grid and the solar farm the company was proposing at the time – not an on-site natural gas-fired power plant. (Beacon said it discussed the updated approach with Rocky View County administrators.)

The county also expected the project to be a significant source of revenue. The expensive computer hardware inside a data centre has the highest assessable value of all the capital in the project, and the county was under the impression that it would be able to tax those components.

But two months after it approved the plan, the province announced that municipalities would not be able to tax internal components. Instead, the province would be the government entity to collect a tax on the computer hardware inside the data centres. In other words, the municipality would be hosting and to some extent resourcing a large-scale data centre, but would only be able to tax it like a warehouse, Mr. Kazmierczak said.

While the county cannot overturn whatever decision the AUC makes regarding the Indus power plant, the data-centre part of the project is still under municipal review.

And for now, permitting for data centres in Rocky View County is on hold. In July, the county implemented a temporary moratorium on new land-use redesignation applications for data centres. The ban will be in place until the county finishes a review that will roll out new regulations for these kinds of developments and “provide certainty through policy,” Mr. Kazmierczak said.

Ms. Armstrong at Beacon said the company will work through the permitting process and comply with conditions imposed by Rocky View County.

Despite the county’s review, it might not be able to control the future of the Beacon project, Mr. Kazmierczak said.

In May, the province passed Bill 28 – the Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act – giving it the ability to override municipal bylaws. It has already used these powers to control housing projects in Edmonton.

Councils are concerned the province will do the same with regards to data centres, said Dylan Bressey, president of Alberta Municipalities.

“This is something that is a very acute worry in all types of municipalities across Alberta right now.”

The minister, Mr. Glubish, said the province is moving carefully when it comes to development. “We don’t need to be the fastest. We need to be competitive,” he told The Globe in September. Jurisdictions that move too fast risk making mistakes that could negatively affect citizens, he continued. “They will lose social licence to develop this infrastructure.”

For some constituents, that loss of trust is already be happening. Now that the AUC has approved the power plant in Sturgeon County, the project’s lone intervenor – Samson Cree Nation – must decide what to do next.

There are two options: Accept the project with conditions, or launch a legal dispute. Under Canada’s Constitution, the province’s duty to consult is clear, said the Nation’s legal counsel, Mr. Reeder. The government must “act honourably with respect to Indigenous communities,” he said.

If Ms. Buffalo had it her way, the Nation would continue to oppose the project. “These things are all so new,” she said. “We need to take a step back.”

The Antliffs, Gowdys and other residents in Indus are anxiously awaiting news about the proposed data centre in their area, and weighing their options should they face the same dilemma as Samson Cree.

There’s talk in the community about further legal action, said Mr. Antliff, who knows everyone in the area and is an active member of his local church. The couple understands that sometimes development has to happen, but they believe it could have happened differently.

And under the circumstances, they’re not inclined to back down.

“You don’t just sell something when your roots go that deep,” said Mr. Antliff, adding that the farm is his family’s legacy. “It’s my responsibility to keep things going. You don’t want things to go away on your watch.”

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The Decibel

There are several development projects under way for AI data centres in Canada, with plans for many, many more. The Globe’s national reporter Joe Friesen joins the show to talk about some of the projects slated for development in Canada, why so many have faced public backlash, and the balance the government has to strike in deciding how and whether to build these centres in Canada.