Loudoun, USA to Alberta:Lessons from the Worlds #1 Largest Data Centre Hub

Loudoun County, Virginia is the world’s #1 largest data centre cluster, now home to nearly 200+ facilities and responsible for moving 70% of the world’s internet traffic.

Loudoun County's growth has strengthened the local economy as Loudoun County is the wealthiest county in America as a result of the data centre industry and ancillary invstment from technology over the last 20 years. However, the data centre boom has also created real challenges around land use, energy demand, community impact, and long term sustainability and viability.

Mike Turner, Ashburn District Supervisor, Vice Chair of the Loudoun County Board, and author of "A Strategy for a Changing Paradigm", will share what Loudoun has learned over the past 20 years, the risks it faces over the next several years with AI, energy, and the data centre industry, and how resident concerns, environmental pressures, and grid limitations are shaping its future decisions.

Alberta has the land, climate, energy advantage, workforce and industrial capability to support large scale digital infrastructure. However, the future requires an assessment of what actually makes sense for Alberta’s economy and communities, and learnings from Loudon County can be taken into account to move forward.

As Alberta continues to progress its data, AI, and energy strategies, it will need to have meaningful engagement across the board with a variety of stakeholders: energy producers, grid operators, municipalities, Indigenous partners, industry leaders, financial institutions, residents, and local businesses. This ensures Alberta stakeholders understand expectations, benefits, risks, environmental impacts, and long term trade offs before making commitments.

The intersection of AI, energy, and applied AI is the focus for this panel, with the following participants:

• Mike Turner (Loudoun County, USA): The lessons, learnings, and future of AI, energy, and data centres in Loudon County.
• Nicole Janssen (AltaML): How applied AI may fit into Alberta’s economic future
• Melanie Bayley (Energex): Energy and grid considerations for any potential AI, data centre and compute growth

Moderated by Colin Knoll, this session explores what Canada and Alberta can learn from Loudoun County: what to consider, what to avoid, and what conversations must happen to being national coordination to the future AI economy.