Alberta's AI data-centre rush meets farmer and First Nation resistance
Alberta is chasing $100-billion of data-centre investment in five years, and its grid has already been asked to connect 26,849 megawatts of load for data centres, roughly enough to power a second Alberta. But the province's pitch is running into farmers and First Nations who say the speed of the build-out is leaving them with little say over their land.
At the centre of the fight is Beacon Data Centers Inc., a Calgary company founded in 2023 by New York-based AI investor Nadia Partners. Beacon plans two natural gas plants with co-located hyperscale data centres, one near the community of Indus southeast of Calgary and another in Sturgeon County northeast of Edmonton. The Indus project would be 1,494 megawatts, enough to power a city the size of Edmonton, according to the company's filings.
Creig Antliff, a 75-year-old fourth-generation organic farmer, said two Beacon representatives arrived at his kitchen in May and, after discussing the gas plant, asked to buy his land. He and his wife Jeannie had signed on as intervenors in the Alberta Utilities Commission process, which lets affected residents object at public hearings. Across the road, Nancy and John Gowdy said a similar visit came in July. Both families refused to sell. "There's enough vacant land in the middle of nowhere," Ms. Gowdy said. "Why would they have just plunked it right here?"
Kaylyn Buffalo, consultation director at Samson Cree Nation, said a Beacon representative called her in June offering the Nation millions of dollars to drop its intervenor status over the Sturgeon County project. She said the Nation declined and remains opposed. "I told them directly that it's not enough," she said, citing a membership of more than 10,000 people. Beacon vice-president of corporate affairs Lauren Armstrong said the company has engaged landowners and Indigenous communities and has committed to measures on noise, air quality and environmental protection. She said Beacon does not require landowners to withdraw as intervenors as a condition of discussing a property deal.
The province's technology and innovation minister, Nate Glubish, has faced jeers at town halls in Lacombe and Redwater, though he told an interviewer that thousands of Albertans support the build-out. Alberta's data-centre strategy, launched in late 2024, offers a "concierge service" to developers and now prioritises projects that generate their own power, a policy shift that pushed Beacon to abandon a solar plan at Indus for natural gas. The province has 20 active data centres, with 149 announced and four under construction, according to data provider Aterio. Meta Platforms said in July it would build a $13-billion campus near Edmonton, and Anthropic is in talks to lease Beacon's Sturgeon County site, according to Token Times. In the United States, 46 states have 575 active restrictions on data-centre development, a backlash Alberta is now confronting in its own backyard.
