A former protein-processing plant just outside Winnipeg is being converted into an AI data centre.<\/p>\n
Bell Canada is transforming the former home of Merit Functional Foods in the CentrePort industrial development into an artificial intelligence data centre the company describes as “a small presence” in the rural municipality of Rosser.<\/p>\n
The CentrePort data centre, under construction just west of Brookside Boulevard, is part of what Bell calls its AI Fabric \u2014 an effort to develop sovereign AI in Canada, Bell spokesperson Matt Silver said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Sovereign AI is the ability of a country to develop and control artificial intelligence within its own borders by relying on its digital and physical infrastructure, as opposed to networks based and data stored in the U.S. and other foreign states.<\/p>\n
Premier Wab Kinew said last fall more data centres would be built within Manitoba to support sovereign AI.<\/p>\n
He told reporters in October to check out his state of the province speech to learn more details. That speech, issued in December, did not reference any specific plans to build data centres in Manitoba.<\/p>\n
In March, Bell Canada announced plans to build a $1.7-billion data centre south of Regina that will require 300 megawatts of electricity. That works out to roughly eight per cent of Saskatchewan’s total peak generating capacity.<\/p>\n
The construction project underway at CentrePort, metres outside Winnipeg’s northwest border, is much smaller than the Regina-area project.<\/p>\n
A trio of building and development permits filed with the South Interlake Planning District state the data centre project in Rosser involves at least $31.5 million worth of construction.<\/p>\n
The permits call for construction crews to modify the walls of the former protein-processing plant so the facility can serve as a data centre. The permits also call for the construction of concrete pads to support generators, chillers and transformers.<\/p>\n
The Rosser data centre will only require 5.5 megawatts of electricity, Bell spokesperson Silver said. That works out to less than one thousandth of Manitoba’s generating capacity.<\/p>\n
In the United States, larger data centres have become political liabilities because of their impact on the electrical grid.<\/p>\n
The Bell AI Fabric data centre in Rosser is an adaptive reuse of a 94,000-square-foot facility that cost $150 million to build and was designed to convert peas and canola into protein.<\/p>\n
The federal government contributed $100 million to the Merit Functional Foods facility, mostly in the form of loans, in 2020.<\/p>\n
Merit opened the protein-processing plant in 2021. Two years later, the company was in receivership.<\/p>\n
Rosser Reeve Ken Mulligan declined to comment on the renovation project. Kinew’s office also declined to comment on the Bell AI Fabric project or the prospect of more AI data centres in Manitoba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former protein-processing plant just outside Winnipeg is being converted into an AI data centre. Bell Canada is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5947,12075,12073,240,12076,12074,2565,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-24429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg","8":"tag-ai-data-centre","9":"tag-bell-canada","10":"tag-data-centre","11":"tag-manitoba","12":"tag-matt-silver","13":"tag-rural-municipality-of-rosser","14":"tag-wab-kinew","15":"tag-winnipeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}