Keeping cool: How Meta plans to cut down on water use at its Alberta data centre

Meta has unveiled plans for a massive data centre intended for Sturgeon County. It's the first for the tech giant in Canada.

A Meta Platforms Inc. executive garnered applause at a news conference this week after he boasted that a gargantuan data centre planned for north of Edmonton would use less water annually than a typical Alberta golf course.

The tech behemoth was announcing a $13-billion-plus investment in a complex the size of 33 Canadian Football League fields to be powered by a new natural gas plant that could eventually produce more electricity than what the City of Edmonton uses.

The data centre in Sturgeon County, like other hyperscale proposals in Canada, is to use what’s known as a closed-loop cooling system to keep servers from overheating — different from an evaporative cooling system that requires enormous amounts of water.

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Marina Freire-Gormaly, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at York University, says the closed-loop technique works well in cooler climates like Alberta’s and would be much more effective in the winter than the summer.

She says Meta would likely use a coolant similar to the fluids used in vehicles, which would run through pipes overtop of the hottest parts of the chips and absorb the heat.

The loop would then run to the outside of the building, where the air is cooler, and a series of fans would move the heat away; cooled down fluid would re-enter the building through the loop and head back to the servers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2026.

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press