Meta's Alberta data centre to use closed-loop cooling with no water for regular operations

Meta Platforms Inc. announced a $13-billion-plus investment in a hyperscale data centre north of Edmonton designed to use dramatically less water than traditional data centre cooling systems, positioning Canada as an attractive location for tech companies seeking both climate advantages and sustainability.

The facility, the size of 33 Canadian Football League fields, will be powered by a new natural gas plant that could eventually produce more electricity than the City of Edmonton uses. Unlike data centres in hotter climates that rely on evaporative cooling requiring enormous amounts of cool water, Meta's Alberta location will use a closed-loop cooling system—similar to vehicle coolant systems—where fluid circulates through pipes to absorb and dissipate heat.

"The on-site water use is limited to domestic uses, fire protection systems and some equipment maintenance applications," said Gary Demasi, vice-president of data centre strategy and development at Meta.

Marina Freire-Gormaly, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at York University, said the closed-loop technique is effective in cooler climates like Alberta's where the temperature difference between equipment and outside air favours passive heat dissipation. The system works best during winter and she noted curiosity about how Meta's design would handle summer heat peaks in the Edmonton area.

Nvidia, a leading AI chipmaker, recently announced its servers can tolerate coolant as warm as 45°C—hotter than a hot tub—enabling greater efficiency gains. Nvidia's fluid is three-quarters water and one-quarter propylene glycol.

"These newer data centres, they should always use closed-loop cooling," Freire-Gormaly said. "These evaporative cooling approaches are really harmful to the environment. And the reason they're relying on it is because they don't have that natural temperature difference between the environment and the temperature that they're trying to cool from."

The announcement underscores Canada's competitive advantage in attracting hyperscale data centre investment due to its climate and available power. It is unclear what cooling system the adjacent power plant will use or whether Meta might consider using the data centre's waste heat for other purposes.