Since Telus announced that it’s planning to build two massive artificial intelligence (AI) centres in Vancouver, the news has been met with a lot of backlash.
One location is set in Mount Pleasant at 111 East 5th Ave., and the other is right next to the BC Place stadium, at the intersection of Beatty Street and West Georgia Street.
Telus is working on this with the Government of Canada and local developer Westbank, with the goal of strengthening Canada’s domestic AI infrastructure. The plan is for them to rely heavily on electricity supplied through BC Hydro, and the two Vancouver sites — along with a third in Kamloops — will scale to over 60,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) and 150 megawatts of computing capacity by 2032.
But a group called No AI Data Centres in Vancouver has organized large protest marches against them, drawing in hundreds of people. They’ve cited concerns about the AI Centres impact on the environment, including the fact that these centres have become notorious for high electricity and water use.
Now, a Vancouver city councillor is calling on council to pump the brakes on the AI data centres.
OneCity Vancouver Councillor Lucy Maloney has introduced a member’s motion to pause consideration of large new data centres in Vancouver until the City creates a framework they can use to assess their community risks and impacts.
“Hyperscale data centres bring new risks, and need thorough evaluation,” said Maloney in a release sent to Daily Hive. “As often occurs with major technology advances, current regulations simply haven’t caught up to the task — so we must strengthen them.”
The release from OneCity not only cited concerns about data centres’ high consumption of water and energy, but also noted that they produce pollution, waste heat, and noise.
It adds that while AI data centres “often generate significant returns for their investors, the communities that host them do not generally capture a corresponding economic benefit.”
Maloney’s motion also pointed out that in the U.S., data centre construction and operation can “create legitimate concerns and serious impacts on both nearby residents and municipal infrastructure,” without regulation.
It also states that the kind of data centres being built for AI are much different than conventional storage data centres due to scale and energy needs, and thus “present new challenges for cities.”
Further, the motion raises the concern that these centres will occupy Vancouver’s limited commercial and industrial land but not create as many post-construction jobs as other uses would.
However, in an emailed statement to Daily Hive, a Telus spokesperson said that “we want to assure the community that we are building these facilities differently, with sustainability at the core of the design.”
They said that the two Vancouver locations were chosen because they “integrate directly into Vancouver’s energy systems.”
The Mount Pleasant data centre is intended to integrate into Vancouver’s Neighbourhood Energy Utility at M3, and the BC Place centre into Creative Energy’s downtown system at 150 West Georgia.
“Both facilities are innovatively designed to capture waste heat and recycle that thermal energy to heat more than 150,000 homes in Metro Vancouver,” the spokesperson said.
They said that water consumption will be 90 per cent lower than traditional data centres.
Telus added that it expects the facilities to bring $9 billion of “economic value” to B.C. and “support” hundreds of jobs.
Maloney is hoping to have the council direct staff to report back on how the City can create a data centre public impact requirement that ensures applicants (before rezoning or permitting) commission a third-party assessment that addresses water, greenhouse gas emissions, air contaminants, and noise and heat impacts. This assessment would also look at mitigation measures like heat recovery and employment impacts.
Council will consider this motion at a city council meeting on July 15.
With files from Kenneth Chan and Daniel Chai.
Header image credit: Shutterstock
