vancouver's new ai centres claim to set 'new standard' for being more green
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part of the plan to help reduce water consumption is to collect the "millions and millions of litres of water" that pool each year on the roof of b.c. place stadium
nick procaylo
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vancouver is bucking a trend by locating its two new ai data centres in the heart of the city, which proponents say will make the energy-sucking facilities more environmentally friendly than those in rural locations.
“if you have a data centre in a rural area, it’s drawing huge amounts of electricity, or potentially natural gas, and that drives up rates for other people because you don’t have any way of offsetting it,” said kieran mcconnell, president of vancouver-based creative energy. “whereas in an urban context, you can offset that demand by using the electrons twice: once to run ai chips and then a second time to heat buildings.”
mcconnell’s company runs an existing downtown underground pipe network that delivers energy to 215 buildings. those pipes will now be used to capture the heat byproduct that comes from the electricity consumed by ai centres, and then will redistribute it to heat buildings connected to its network.
“you’re using all that electricity a second time to also heat homes. so you’re reducing the societal strain of a data centre,” said mcconnell.
on monday, the federal government announced that it’s partnering with telus and developer westbank to create an “ai factory” in kamloops this year, open a smaller m3 facility in mount pleasant later this year, and build a large new data centre at 150 west georgia st. by 2029. mcconnell’s company is located at the georgia site, which is under construction to eventually make room for the centre to be built.
two-thirds of the new data centres planned for the u.s. are in rural areas, according to the pew research centre. in canada, alberta’s massive wonder valley data centre is being proposed on undeveloped land south of grande prairie.
capturing waste heat isn’t a novel concept, but applying it to ai centres — which typically expel their heat byproducts into the air — is new. the idea is only being used in a few places in europe and other parts of the world, mcconnell said.
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“i think this proposal would set a new standard for data centres across north america, because they are sustainable in ways that have not been implemented elsewhere,” he said, but added that it’s less feasible for rural sites.
however, concerns are still being raised about the environmental impacts of these centres from organizations such as environmental defence and the green party of b.c.
“telus’s claim that their centres will be powered by 98 per cent clean energy is dubious at best. we’re already importing american coal-powered electricity to deal with our energy crisis,” green leader emily lowan said tuesday. “this energy crisis is caused by drought conditions, which will only be made worse by the extensive water usage of data centres.”
federal ai minister evan solomon (l) and speaks with telus ceo darren entwistle (r) during an ai announcement at the telus headquarters in vancouver on may 11, 2026.
lori culbert
chris madan, a telus vice-president who is head of the ai factories, insisted in an email tuesday that the three facilities would be “the most sustainable ai data centres in the world.” unlike other data centres, he said, b.c.’s will use a “closed loop” system to circulate liquid directly to the chips, which will significantly reduce water consumption.
part of that plan, mcconnell said, is to collect the “millions and millions of litres of water” that pool each year on the roof of b.c. place stadium. he didn’t know what percentage of the water needed for the vancouver ai centres might come from the sports venue’s roof, but predicted overall the two urban facilities would consume less than one per cent of the city’s water supply.
in addition, maden said, the heat byproduct captured from the downtown and mount pleasant centres will go into creative energy’s pipe network and the city’s energy system, to displace natural gas heating for about 150,000 vancouver homes. this will also reduce carbon emissions, he said.
the three centres are expected to use roughly 85 megawatts of power from b.c. hydro a year, about eight per cent of the annual production at the new site c dam.
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the federal government didn’t respond to questions by deadline. it has said the “sovereign” centres are being built to keep canadian data in this country.
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