Meta’s data center invasion of Canada has begun. It’s as good a time as any to remember that Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have a very strange history with Canada. In a blog post, the company says it’s “breaking ground” on what’s meant to be a one gigawatt AI data center in Sturgeon County, part of the province of Alberta. That’s about 350 miles due north of the U.S. border—way up there, but hardly the middle of nowhere. In fact it’s just north of Edmonton, the northernmost North American city with over 1 million people. Alberta is a famously low-regulation environment, sometimes called “the Texas of Canada.” A Meta spokesperson told CNBC, “This specific location met the factors we typically look for: good access to infrastructure, a robust electric grid and access to energy, a strong pool of talent, and a great set of community partners that helped us move this project forward.” This data center, Meta’s blog post claims, “represents an investment of more than CAD $13 billion and will support over 3,000 construction workers at peak and more than 300 operational jobs.” It’s reportedly Meta’s 33rd data center.
However, it’s not clear from the blog post if CEO Mark Zuckerberg can personally supervise construction of this data center. I hope you’ll forgive the detour, but: In 2019, Zuckerberg was subpoenaed by Canada’s parliament in order to testify before the privacy and ethics committee of Canada’s House of Commons. He disobeyed the subpoena, and subsequently received an open-ended summons. That summons means that if Zuckerberg ever enters Canada for any reason, he’s legally required to testify before Parliament or face the possibility of a contempt charge. It’s not clear if this summons is still active.
