Canada's artificial intelligence minister, Evan Solomon, has told a Senate committee that the federal government cannot regulate how much electricity AI data centres use because power is a provincial responsibility, Global News reports.
Solomon said provinces including Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia were drawing up their own data centre laws, and that doubling the capacity of Canada's grid was essential to the national AI strategy. He said Ottawa had received more than 160 data centre proposals and signed memorandums of understanding with about four companies, and that it wanted high standards on water and energy use and transparency.
The comments come as EverWind Fuels plans a C$10bn data centre at Point Tupper, Nova Scotia, where Anthropic has signed a 20-year lease. Its first phase is due online late next year.
Source: Global News
