The 1-gigawatt facility, Meta’s largest outside the U.S., taps Alberta’s cheap natural gas and cold climate — rewarding infrastructure owners like Brookfield Infrastructure Partners（TSX: BIP.UN）positioned for the global AI buildout
Meta Platforms Inc. unveiled plans Wednesday to build its first Canadian artificial intelligence data center in Sturgeon County, Alberta, committing C$13 billion ($9.17 billion) to the project in its largest compute infrastructure investment outside the United States. The announcement amplifies the long-term growth tailwind for global infrastructure firms positioned to supply the power, land and digital backbone behind the AI boom.
Set to become Meta’s 33rd data center worldwide, the 1-gigawatt facility will support large-scale AI model training alongside its flagship social media platforms. Alberta was selected for two structural cost advantages: abundant natural gas priced at a steep discount to U.S. benchmarks, and a frigid climate that cuts cooling costs for power-hungry supercomputing hardware.
To power the facility — which will draw roughly as much electricity as 800,000 households — Meta will fully fund dedicated generation and grid upgrades, and has struck a long-term tolling agreement with Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. Pembina’s Greenlight Electricity Centre, a natural gas-fired plant slated to enter service in late 2030, will supply about 150 million cubic feet of gas per day to the project. The buildout is expected to create more than 3,000 construction jobs and 300 full-time operational roles, generating an estimated C$250 million in annual tax revenue for the region.
The deal marks a landmark win for Alberta’s provincial government, which has spent years courting Silicon Valley hyperscalers to diversify its fossil fuel-driven economy. The province now leads Canada in planned AI data center capacity, with more than 18 gigawatts of proposed projects in the pipeline, nearly all backed by on-site natural gas generation.
Federal government documents previously pegged total Canadian data center capacity under planning at more than 20 GW — a figure that would rank the country second among G7 nations if fully realized. Officials have since clarified the number is a high-level snapshot of private-sector proposals, not a formal policy target, and that most projects will not proceed amid power constraints, regulatory reviews and growing local pushback over emissions.
While Meta has not named Brookfield Infrastructure Partners as a direct partner on the Alberta project, the Toronto-listed infrastructure giant is widely viewed as one of the best-positioned public companies to capture value from the global AI buildout, thanks to its integrated portfolio of data centers, power systems and digital networks.
Brookfield operates 150 data centers across multiple continents through platforms including Compass Datacenters and Data4, with 2.3 GW of contracted capacity and 3.6 GW of development pipeline. Its digital infrastructure footprint also spans 308,000 telecom sites and 77,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable, forming an end-to-end compute and connectivity ecosystem.
On the power side, Brookfield has expanded its strategic alliance with Bloom Energy to $25 billion — up from an initial $5 billion — to deploy behind-the-meter generation solutions tailored for AI data centers, addressing one of the most pressing bottlenecks for hyperscale expansion.
The AI tailwind is already showing up in Brookfield’s financial results. In the first quarter of 2026, funds from operations from its data segment jumped 46% year over year, making it the company’s fastest-growing division. Overall FFO reached $709 million, or $0.90 per unit, and the firm lifted its annual dividend by 6%, bringing its forward yield to about 4.9%.
“AI spending starts with semiconductors and cloud software, but the long-term buildout runs on physical infrastructure: data centers, power transmission, fiber and land,” said an infrastructure sector strategist covering the space. “Brookfield’s portfolio of long-life, contracted assets gives it far more earnings visibility than pure-play tech names, making it a core way to play the AI boom with lower volatility.”
