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The chiefs of four First Nations in Alberta say they want to take part in the province’s growing data centre industry, but that the province is taking the wrong approach to attract large-scale tech players.
The chiefs of the Alexander First Nation, Paul First Nation, Enoch Cree Nation and Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation outlined their concerns in an open letter to Premier Danielle Smith and members of her government.
“We, as Indigenous Communities, embrace this vision and are eager to participate meaningfully in building a world-class data centre industry that creates jobs, generates revenue, and secures long-term prosperity for all our people,” the Chiefs stated in the letter.
The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said earlier this month that it has received requests from 29 proposed data centre projects representing more than 16,000 megawatts — more than 11 times the City of Edmonton’s load.
The chiefs believe more work is needed with Alberta’s current objectives.
“However, we must express our concern that the AESO’s recent announcement of their approach on large load connections will undermine these ambitions. While the release of this allocation methodology is a long-awaited milestone that provides some much-needed clarity, the approach appears fundamentally inconsistent with Alberta’s stated policy objectives of attracting large hyperscalers and catalyzing a data centre industry at scale,” the Chiefs said in the letter.
“In simple terms, Alberta’s current framework is capping our potential at the very moment we should be unleashing it.”
The chiefs added that companies like Meta or Amazon don’t build small, and the limit sends a signal that Alberta is not ready to meet those companies’ needs or see a flagship project come to fruition.
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