What to know
- Toronto council has requested reports on two proposed data centres in Scarborough and Etobicoke, while Mississauga has voted to pause new data centre developments for up to a year as it studies their potential impacts.
- Experts say data centres can require significant electricity and cooling, raising concerns about energy demand, water use and heat generation, though impacts vary depending on the technology and cooling systems used.
- Environmental advocates are calling for stronger oversight before approving large projects.
- Meanwhile, one expert says the same computing infrastructure can also power climate modelling, weather forecasting and other environmental research, making careful evaluation of each project essential.
Between the Toronto city council requesting more information on the potential impact of AI data centres and Mississauga moving to pause developments of such facilities, the institutions continue to spark controversy across the province.
Last week, Toronto City Council passed two motions requesting a series of reports over two data centres proposed in Etobicoke and Scarborough.
The first motion, put forward by Coun. Parthi Kandavel, requests a provincial framework for a proposed STACK Infrastructure data centre expansion at 3650 Danforth Ave. in Scarborough. The councillor is looking for more information on the development and its potential impacts, as well as a review of city policy on data centres.
Another motion by Coun. Vincent Crisanti calls for similar assessments on a different proposed centre at 48 Lowes Place in Etobicoke.
The requests for reports come after several residents reached out to city councillors expressing concerns about the potential impacts of the data centres, including how they would affect local electricity systems and what the potential environmental consequences of the projects would be.
Mississauga moves to pause development
As Toronto city councillors move to gather more information on the impacts and applications of the data centres, Mississauga City Council has approved a plan directing its staff to prepare an Interim Control By-law (ICBL) that would prohibit the development of data centres for up to a year.
While the projects are paused, the city hopes to assess any impacts and update its policies and regulations to accommodate these new software developments.
As explained on the government’s website, while Mississauga houses several other data centres, the city has received a rezoning application for a new data centre in the Meadowvale Business Park, which would be considerably larger in both size and scale.
What are AI data centres?
Martin Karsten, a computer science professor at the University of Waterloo, tells Now Toronto that despite the controversial facilities being referred to as AI data centres, “there is no such thing as an AI data center.”
Karsten explains that what we call data centres are facilities that house computers and run several different applications for a variety of purposes. These facilities can also be used to power AI systems.
“There is a new form of computing that has come up in the last couple of years that is contemporarily sort of labelled as AI and is characterized by running a certain type of mathematical model, and that these types of mathematical models can be run on a specific type of hardware,” he explained.
“These GPUs make it possible to run these massive mathematical models in a way that sort of produces output in reasonable times. At some level, also just the sheer scale of it all becomes sort of very big and very resource intensive.”
What are the potential environmental impacts of these developments?
How-Sen Chong, a climate campaigner at the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), was also one of the many residents who submitted a letter to city council requesting that the data centre developments be paused while their impact is assessed.
She says TEA is concerned about the environmental consequences that large data centres can have on the city, including possible negative impacts on the local community.
Upon observing other jurisdictions with similar developments, Chong said these centres have the potential to use an intensive amount of energy and water to power and cool them, which they worry could lead to negative consequences if the city isn’t properly prepared to deal with them.
“Even in some cases, they have seen a rise of local temperatures of as far up as 25ºC,” she explained. “That can have a potentially large impact on any communities living by these data centers, particularly during extreme heat events.”
According to Karsten, these systems can require more electricity to power their computers than more traditional systems, as they produce output in a different form.
“These GPUs just consume a lot of power, and power needs to be produced somehow, and producing power, energy, electricity might, depending on how it’s done, have an environmental impact,” he said.
Moreover, Karsten and Chong both say these large systems can produce a lot of heat, often requiring powerful cooling systems to keep running. However, using water is not the only way to do it.
Karsten says these systems can use different technologies to cool down, including being placed in cooler areas or using technology similar to traditional air conditioning. On the other hand, water is often also used to cool these systems, which could lead to negative environmental impact.
“This is the only one that one could see as problematic is where you just use water to cool the computers, and then you just dump the hot water back into the circulation, into a lake or a stream,” he said. “You’d have a heating effect that is certainly an impact on the environment.”
“Then there is also technology where you use that water, heat it up, and then sort of just spread it out and let it dissipate. And that, of course, would be akin to water consumption. That could also be a problem.”
AI technology can also be used to benefit climate research
Despite their potential environmental impacts, Karsten said data centres can also support climate and environment research.
As pointed out by the expert during a Hamilton council meeting last month, climate scientists can use computer systems to run large simulations and predict environmental impacts of climate change, which could be helpful when developing climate solutions. This is possible because these systems can be larger and more powerful than more traditional centres.
“I work, for example, with one colleague, and they are doing ocean modelling. So, they create large simulations to model the behaviour of oceans with respect to climate, with respect to how the water moves and everything,” he said.
“They can perform some of these computations on the same hardware that is also used for AI computations, and then if you can do that… It allows those folks that do that kind of research or weather predictions and things like that to run their computations on this kind of hardware.”
Given their possible benefits, Karsten said it’s important for governments and communities to consider what these centres might be used for and their predicted impacts before making decisions, rather than assuming they all work the same and fit the same purpose.
“Don’t paint everything with the same brush. I think it is very important to be somewhat skeptical, to ask questions, to be a little worried…But I think any kind of reaction that just says ‘no’ to everything isn’t the right answer here either. I think differentiation is the key.”
Advocates calling for a pause
Meanwhile, Chong said TEA’s position isn’t to completely cancel the development, but rather to pause it so that the city can better understand its impacts and perhaps change its policies to ensure environmental protections.
“We think that Mississauga is making a wise choice to pause any approvals for any large data centers until more information is known, and we think that the City of Toronto should follow suit,” she said.
“Before we allow for especially large amounts of these projects and large projects to come into the city in large numbers, we need to make sure that the environmental impact is actually being managed responsibly.”
