Canada issues national data-center development principles

Canada has released Responsible Data Centre Development Principles setting five federal expectations for projects, including local benefits, grid reliability, freshwater use, disclosure of local effects and strategic value. Twenty-three companies, including AWS, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, have signed on. The framework complements provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous processes; provinces and municipalities still determine approvals, electricity access, pricing and developer requirements. Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia already have differing approaches to data-center grid access.