Ontario Unveils Data Centre Playbook to Drive Economic Growth
The Ontario government has launched its Data Centre Playbook to attract data centre investments and drive economic growth. The framework aims to ensure Canadians' data remains in the country, while delivering significant benefits to local communities.
According to Premier Doug Ford, 'Ontario has a choice: we can build the economy of the future and ensure Canadians' data remains in Canada or we can get left behind and risk Canadians' data being sent to the U.S. and elsewhere.'
The Data Centre Playbook is anchored in three pillars: advancing economic development, protecting data security, and investing in communities to drive local infrastructure developments, job creation, and training.
Data centres will pay for the cost of their impact on the electricity system, ensuring people's electricity bills are not increased. The province will only offer non-financial support to attract data centre investments, leveraging Ontario's existing strategic advantages such as a clean and reliable electricity system, ample land space, cool climate, and skilled workforce.
The government is seeking public input through the Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) and the Ontario Regulatory Registry (ORR) for a 30-day public comment period. The Data Centre Playbook is expected to generate $122 billion in economic growth by 2035 and create over 17,000 new jobs every year.