O’Leary Ventures says that has been the case for the last ten years
By Ernest Granson
The business of developing, building and operating a data center, whether it’s a moderate sized facility or on the hyperscale level is a high stakes activity. In order to execute their project, developers will have either invested from their own finances or attracted financing from investors. In both cases, the location of the project, whether on a global or regional level, plays a crucial role in the decision the investors make.
In a recent media interview, Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Leary Ventures, the Miami-based company which is in the midst of planning a major data centre in the Municipal District of Greenview near the Northern Alberta city of Grande Prairie, related his experience in proposing this project to European sovereign wealth funds. O’Leary described being initially shot down by those potential investors because of what he said is the Canadian federal government’s poor reputation for approving large infrastructure projects.
In that same interview, O’Leary stated that the business environment in Alberta is much more conducive, which he says is the main reason why his corporation has decided to go ahead with its ambitious data centre project in the province.
O’Leary Ventures CEO and Data Centre project manager Paul Palandjian elaborates on this view: “As an American with a Canadian family, I try to stay out of political commentary, but will say this, in the last ten years, the Government of Canada has been highly punitive for development filled with regulatory constraints and has impeded the institutional markets from investing in Canada. As a general statement, issues such as heavy carbon taxation and what, we in the U.S., call the Green New Deal, are frankly, anathema to the need for power generation and national security for both Canada and the U.S.”
“These are real issues that have left Canada largely behind the world stage when it is sitting on a tremendous amount of natural resources that could help in solving the global energy problem. You can have all the natural gas in the world, all the hydro and all the nuclear, but if you make it difficult for people to invest, you’re going to be highly restricted in terms of what you can accomplish.”
“And right now, the Canadian grid is in total, only 130 gigawatts - the province of Alberta is roughly 13 or 15 gigawatts - and those numbers need to double in the next four to eight years to be able to compete on a global stage. In my mind, the utilities, which are highly regulated, are not going to be the solution to this problem. It's got to be the private sector building power behind-the-fence that doesn't trigger environmental overreach by the Fed.”
“What you have in the province of Alberta is a pro business, relatively frictionless business environment. The private sector is well capitalized, and the province has most of the natural resources of the country. It’s almost an island unto itself and I think it's a unique opportunity as compared to the rest of Canada. That's why, in our talks with sovereign wealth there is an interest and there is an attraction.”
“It’s not just sovereign wealth. It's also Canada's own pension funds, which have been very slow in investing in its own country. Ultimately, leadership in Canada is going to have to open the doors to foreign investment. In order to do that, they're going to have to make it attractive from a regulatory perspective. So that's the bet we're making here. We’re very optimistic that great things are to come.”