# Meta Invests $9 Billion in First Canadian AI Data Center

> Meta is putting $9 billion into a new AI data center in Sturgeon County, Alberta, its first major facility in Canada and the largest it has built outside the United States. The 1-gigawatt campus, its 33rd data center globally, will take two to three years to build and draw power roughly equivalent to what 750,000 homes consume. The details say a lot about where the AI buildout is headed. Construction will support about 3,000 jobs at peak but only a few hundred permanent operational roles, a reminder that these giant compute hubs are capital projects more than employment engines. Meta is leaning on a closed-loop liquid cooling system that uses no operating water, an answer to mounting criticism about data centers and local water supplies, while still relying largely on natural gas for power. The move plants another flag in the global race to lock down electricity and land for training ever-larger models.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: CNBC · Published Sunday, July 19, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Meta is putting $9 billion into a new AI data center in Sturgeon County, Alberta, its first major facility in Canada and the largest it has built outside the United States. The 1-gigawatt campus, its 33rd data center globally, will take two to three years to build and draw power roughly equivalent to what 750,000 homes consume. The details say a lot about where the AI buildout is headed. Construction will support about 3,000 jobs at peak but only a few hundred permanent operational roles, a reminder that these giant compute hubs are capital projects more than employment engines. Meta is leaning on a closed-loop liquid cooling system that uses no operating water, an answer to mounting criticism about data centers and local water supplies, while still relying largely on natural gas for power. The move plants another flag in the global race to lock down electricity and land for training ever-larger models.

## Source

[Read the full story at CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/08/meta-is-building-its-first-big-data-center-in-canada-amid-ai-push.html)

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