xʷməθkʷəy̓əm [MUSQUEAM], Sḵwx̱wú7mesh [SQUAMISH], and Sel̓íl̓witulh [TSLEIL-WAUTUTH] TERRITORY / VANCOUVER, B.C. — BC Green Party Leader Emily Lowan has announced a call for a moratorium on AI data centre construction and an end to the government’s “build-first, regulate-later” model of data centre development at Web Summit Vancouver.
In response to AI data centre expansion in British Columbia, Lowan stated: “If you ask working British Columbians what they need from their government, none of them would say ‘more AI data centres.’”
On May 11th, the federal government announced that TELUS plans to build two new AI data centres in Vancouver, and expand a Kamloops AI data centre. Lowan expressed concerns surrounding water usage and energy capacity: “During a water and energy crisis, the last thing British Columbians need are facilities that suck up our resources and leave little for the communities they exploit. Data centers are on track to consume over 1 trillion litres of water per year by 2030. BC’s constantly worsening droughts are impairing BC Hydro, forcing the province to import coal-fired electricity from the US, and increasing our dependence on America.”
Lowan also expressed that the government’s justification for building centres to secure data sovereignty is misplaced, stating “We’re putting data in the hands of TELUS, a corporation that just lost a petabyte, that’s 1000 terabytes, of user data and shored off 14 petabytes to the US-owned Google Cloud. This is not a solution for data security or sovereignty.”
“This build-first, regulate-later model puts the public at risk to serve the profits of tech corporations,” said Lowan. “British Columbians need a moratorium on AI data centres until the environmental, health, and data risks of these facilities are understood and regulated.”
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