Microsoft vows data centres will not hike Canadians' water and electricity bills
Tech giants are facing increasing scrutiny over the environmental impact of their operations, but Microsoft Canada Inc . says its data centres for artificial intelligence (AI) use won’t increase the price of electricity for Canadians or affect their water use.
AI data centres are filled with supercomputers that conduct huge amounts of calculations that can quickly consume more than 100 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to the annual consumption of 100,000 households, according to the International Energy Agency.
The centres also require water to cool down because they quickly heat up, with an average mid-sized data centre using about 1.4 million litres of water a day, according to Verisk Maplecroft, an England-based risk consultant.
Microsoft, which committed to investing $19 billion in Canada last December to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure, said AI infrastructure brings “enormous opportunity,” but it is aware Canadians have “real questions” about affordability, energy and water use, jobs and the impact on local communities.
“AI is rapidly changing how organizations operate … and the investment in this data centre will help unlock those benefits for Canadians,” Microsoft Canada’s president Matt Milton said on Monday during a tour of one of its data centres in Vaughan, Ont., that’s still under construction.
“However, investments at this scale naturally raise real questions. What does this mean for our energy rate? What about our water supply? How about the communities and where we are building? We hear those questions. We welcome those questions.”
Milton said Microsoft will “pay its way” on electricity to ensure its data centres “do not increase costs for Canadians.”
Canada is trying to expand its AI and its data centre capacity and the federal government earlier this year issued a call for proposals to build large‑scale AI data centres that have planned capacities greater than 100 megawatts.
But the country’s electricity systems are under strain because of its electrification goals and using more electric vehicles, Michelle Patron, Microsoft’s general manager of energy and sustainability policy, said.
“Microsoft will ensure … that our data centres do not increase electricity price,” she said.
The company said that it will design energy-efficient data centres, work with provinces, utilities and other stakeholders to plan new power supply in advance and support public policies on sustainable power.
The company has already taken some of these steps in Ontario and Quebec.
Canada’s climate is a “real advantage” as far as cooling is concerned, Microsoft said, since it primarily relies on outside air to cool its data centres in those two provinces and only needs cooling water for less than five per cent of the year.
“We use outside air instead of water to cool when temperatures are below 29.4 degrees Celsius,” Patron said. “When temperatures rise above 29.4 degrees Celsius … water is run multiple times through the system.” The company also uses a “small amount” of water to maintain a certain level of humidification, she said.
According to Microsoft’s estimates, the annual water consumption of its new data centres in Quebec and Ontario will be equivalent to about 20 average Canadian households, she said.
Microsoft has also committed to “strengthen water systems” in communities that it operates in. Its onsite systems are projected to capture about 1.5 million litres of rainwater per year for use in its data centres, it said.
It said that once its data centres are built and operational, they will employ 250 full-time employees and 400 contractors to continue maintaining the sites. It will also employ 2,000 people during the construction phase.
The company will also launch national AI skilling initiatives through which it aims to spread AI training to 20,000 educators and students across Canada.
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