Good morning. I’m filling in for Chris Wilson-Smith in order to tell you about The Globe’s new digital tool for finding the data centres popping up around you. Is one going to be built in your neighbourhood? More on that below.

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Hi there, I’m Dexter McMillan, one of the data editors here at The Globe.

Today, Canada faces a tremendous debate around the placement of domestic data centres to enable artificial intelligence, and the role these centres play in the country’s sovereignty amidst the continuing trade war with the United States. I and my colleagues Jason Kirby and Christopher Manza – using a dataset from Vancouver-based research firm and data provider Aterio – built a tool that updates daily to show the locations of data centres across Canada.

While creating this tool, I was surprised to learn that not five kilometres from where I live in Toronto is an AI-capable data centre campus, which is planning an expansion that is estimated to draw up to 60 megawatts more power than the 10 MW it already draws.

That’s a lot of energy.

Data centres can lower home values, generate substantial noise and consume significant power and water (which is used for cooling), so where they’re built matters. Oakville and Mississauga recently implemented moratoriums on data centre developments so they can properly study these effects, and other municipalities are likely to follow suit.

These data centres can also provide neighbourhoods with jobs (and, in fact, have been doing so at a brisk pace).

Zoom out to view the map of Canada, and you’ll notice hundreds of other dots across the country, representing data centre projects that are active, announced or under construction.

It’s worth noting that data centres existed long before generative AI juiced up demand for this type of infrastructure. They can house all sorts of data to power websites that we all use on a regular basis to shop and stream. They can store a vast array of information, including financial records, demographic information and purchase histories.

But some of these facilities – the ones marked with a star – are purpose-built to support AI. Like the one near me, they’re designed to hold the vast amounts of data required to power large language models such as Claude and ChatGPT, which are only becoming more central to the way we work.

These expansions all align with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s AI For All strategy, which aims to enable larger-scale facilities nationwide. That in turn could mean less exposure to economic pressure from neighbouring countries.

While the debate over the location of these facilities continues, special links to this tool will be included in our coverage to provide a clearer picture of how our reporting on these centres relates directly to communities.

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