By Morgan Mouton, assistant professor at INRS-UCS, and Julia Frotey, assistant professor at INRS-UQAR
Digital infrastructures have gained a lot of visibility recently. For years, they had remained a neglected object of analysis, save from a handful of journalistic accounts (see for instance Andrew Blum’s Tubes) and a small number of scholarly pieces in urban studies, which for the most part placed the focus on the spatial reach of telecommunication networks and largely ignored the question of data centers (DCs). These facilities constitute an important component of digital infrastructure, and they increasingly spark public debate. Two phenomena account for this increased visibility: a growing awareness of their environmental footprint on the one hand, and a sharp rise in their number and size on the other hand.
Assessing the scope of the problem
The pressure of DCs on resource consumption is now well-documented: a gargantuan appetite for the electricity that powers servers and cooling systems, a bottomless thirst for the water that gets pumped into cooling towers, not to mention the mineral resources and energy that enable the manufacture of electronic components that populate server racks. However, evaluating the environmental impacts of DCs in a precise manner is a difficult endeavour. First, the number of DCs has been growing very rapidly, making it hard to have an up-to-date picture of the situation: back in 2022, Mél Hogan was writing that 90% of DCs had been built in the past couple of years. By the time a study on the environmental cost of DCs gets published, it is already outdated.
Second, the fact that we don’t have accurate information is not the mere consequence of the industry’s rapid evolution and lack of data centralization. Rather, it is often the result of a deliberate strategy from DC operators, who do not want their water and electricity consumption to be made public, and who resort to an array of methods that have been tried and trusted by extractive industries (e.g., non-disclosure agreements with local administrations and utilities: see Jenna Ruddock’s presentation on this note).
Regardless, we can present a few figures to give a sense of the extent of the problem:
- The International Energy Agency calculated that DCs worldwide consumed 460 TWh in 2022, which amounted to 2% of the total global electricity consumption (by way of comparison, Hydro-Québec produces 200 TWh annually). It gets more worrying when the same organization estimated 2026 global consumption for DCs to reach between 650 TWh and 1,050 TWh, which represents an almost-two-fold increase in four years.
- For 2023, studies contended that crypto-currency mining led to a 120 TWh consumption worldwide.
- By the end of 2024, it was estimated that DCs used for generative artificial intelligence (genAI) were producing as much greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as civil aviation.
This trend has been exaggerated by the spectacular rise and circulation of large language models (LLMs), which necessitate colossal processing power. This context led to ever-escalating announcements, from the 500-billion USD Stargate project made public shortly after the beginning of D. Trump’s second term to Microsoft’s plans to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in order to respond to its insatiable energy needs. Microsoft’s transparency on the impact of AI on its GHG emissions is, for once, remarkable: the company openly admits that its commitment to the development of genAI has overturned its previous pledge to become “carbon negative.” One of the company’s vice-presidents, Brad Smith, elaborates: “In 2020, we unveiled what we called our carbon moonshot. That was before the explosion in AI. […] So in many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020, if you just think of our own forecast for the expansion of AI and its electrical needs.” Never mind climate change.
The heat generated by a Sherbrooke-based DC is scorching the exposed side of a nearby tree.
Why study DCs from a social science perspective – and why in Québec?
As DCs multiply and increase in size, their environmental footprint has become an important focus for research. The way these facilities integrate into host cities and territories remains insufficiently documented, however. What are the factors that determine the exact location of a DC? How are resources (water, electricity) shared with neighbouring activities? How are local communities reacting to their settlement? Are there local policies that seek to support and/or regulate this industry, and if so, how are they implemented? These questions have gradually emerged as a research agenda for social scientists, but as far as we know, they have not been raised in the context of Québec.
The context of Québec is a unique. Access to cheap hydroelectricity has made it a popular destination for DCs – the utility, Hydro-Québec, was once an active promoter of DC installation in the province, as we will show in the first map. The datacentermap.com website draws up an inventory of 52 DCs in Québec, for a total power draw of 725 MW (the equivalent to peak demand for a city like Laval). We know that these data are not exhaustive: for instance, the DCs that we focus on in the second map were not initially displayed on the website, and they were added after we contacted the datacentermap manager.
Why share the results of our research as an interactive map?
While the use of digital technologies has spread over the last decades, the spatial distribution of digital infrastructures is not uniform globally or at the scale of a country. When it comes to DCs, high concentrations can be observed in a relatively small number of strategic locations. These areas may offer preferential access to cheap power or water, they may be characterized by the availability of suitable land that is well-connected to infrastructures, they may benefit from fiscal incentives, or they may be close to other digital infrastructures, thus granting DCs reduced latency (i.e., allowing two facilities to communicate more quickly). In addition, the logics of DC location choices depend on the type of activity they engage in: a cryptocurrency-mining facility will have needs that differ from those of the data warehouse of a Fortune-500 company, or those of a university’s computing center – the Sherbrooke map will illustrate this. Spatializing our results allowed us to simultaneously analyse the locational drivers of DC implantation and the issues of territorial integration that arise after they settle.
In addition, we wanted the map to be interactive and illustrated because we did not want DCs to be mere points on a map: our objective was to make them visible to a public that seldom considers their material existence (in all likeliness). Using drawings was a way to highlight the visual characteristics of these facilities, to introduce their urban context, and to convey the feelings we had as we carried our field visits. Most of these drawings are based on fieldwork photographs, a couple of them on pictures that we retrieved online. We would like to state that the drawings are the product of human work (as opposed to LLM-generated images), as are the texts that accompany them. These explanatory texts draw upon a review of literature that we published in Netcom (in French), as well as several field site observations, and a dozen of semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the DC sector (municipal employees, utility executives, real-estate agents, employees from regional development agencies, DC managers).
The result takes the form of two maps: a first one adopts a provincial scale and aims at presenting the singular context of DC development in Québec, while a second one zooms in on the city of Sherbrooke in order to highlight two specific case studies that illustrate the plurality of issues that arise depending on the size and function of DCs. We hope that these maps will help to have a better understanding of the challenges that emerge from DC development, and that they can (modestly) contribute to public debate on the question.
Go to the Sherbrooke map
Go to the Province of Quebec map
Inexpensive “green” electricity
In 2022, 95% of Quebec’s electricity production came from hydroelectricity. The rapid development of data centers (DCs) in Quebec is fueled by this access to a largely decarbonized energy source, perceived as abundant, and relatively inexpensive. While recent years have seen the province’s electricity production surplus shrink significantly, Quebec remains a welcoming territory for digital infrastructures. In fact, Quebec’s history is inextricably linked with that of hydroelectricity and the state-owned Hydro-Québec corporation. The latter has become an important part of Quebec’s identity, embodying provincial economic sovereignty through control over natural resources. Hydro-Quebec’s birth followed the expropriation of private utilities’ assets. These companies had brought on the ire of Adélard Godbout’s government (1939-1944), who lamented that they were a symbol of “English economic domination.” The Montreal Light, Heat, and Power was first on the government’s line of sight and quickly became a state-owned company that operated as a key element for regional development. Its new role was supported by the construction of new power plants and the extension of the power grid in rural Quebec, and backed by the successive governments of Maurice Duplessis (1944-1959). Finally, the 1960s and the Quiet Revolution further strengthened Hydro-Quebec’s ties to the province-wide project of “modernization” and economic nationalism. The slogan “Maîtres chez nous” (“Masters in our own home”) was used to promote the second stage of electricity nationalization, which would transform the state-owned company from a regional player into a fully-fledged provincial actor. The history of electricity in Quebec is, therefore, part of the history of the Quebec political project, as well as the province’s colonial history. The construction of huge hydroelectric dams, such as the James Bay project in the 1970s, led to the displacement of Indigenous communities and heavily disrupted their way of life. The installation of DCs, facilitated by relatively easy access to “green” electricity, reflects this colonial history and extends the environmental, social, and cultural impacts of hydroelectric dam construction.
The OVH facility in Beauharnois
What does a DC look like? Let’s take the example of the one built by the French web hosting and cloud services company OVH. When construction began in 2012, it was heralded as one of the world’s largest DCs, with 360,000 projected servers and an investment of $127 million. The location of the facility is not insignificant: it sits next to the Beauharnois dam, which helps satiate the company’s appetite for electricity while giving it easy access to water for cooling its servers. The site was previously occupied by an aluminum smelter – another energy-intensive activity – and is thus well-connected to the electricity grid. Its appearance is also representative of this type of digital infrastructure. High fencing topped with barbed wire, multiple surveillance cameras, a security guard post filtering entry. Security is indeed a major concern in this industry, in all meanings: security of supply to ensure business continuity at all times, but also physical security of the servers.
Welcoming DCs, between energy and digital policies
Historically, hydroelectricity production has exceeded the province’s needs, but new requirements (e.g., increased consumption linked to the development of electric vehicles) are challenging this situation of relative abundance (see HEC’s État de l’énergie au Québec). This evolution translated into a shift in the policy of welcoming DCs in Quebec. In 2017, state-owned Hydro-Québec commissioned a report from the consulting firm KPMG to explore the economic spin-offs associated with DCs. The report was dithyrambic regarding the benefits of installing these facilities: it estimated that each MW sold would lead to the creation of 3.5 direct jobs, and projected the creation of $1.7 billion in added value for Quebec if the province followed the “1,000 MW [for DC power] by 2025” scenario it had developed. Fast-forward a few years. The prospect of an electricity shortage is starting to take hold in the public debate, and the craze for DCs has waned. However, policies to develop the digital sector sometimes take precedence over energy policies. This is illustrated by Microsoft’s construction of four DCs around Quebec City, in L’Ancienne-Lorette , Donnacona, Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, and Lévis, for a total investment of $685 million. The objectives, “to increase Quebec’s cloud computing capacity” and build the infrastructure required for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, convinced the government to allocate available power to the U.S.-based company. For the government, there are “good” and “bad” DCs, as summarized by then-Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon in 2023: “We said no to crypto. Data centers, if they bring something to Quebec businesses and enable companies to have products, we’re going to be open to that.”
The less visible face of a “Montreal history” of digital and AI technology
The construction of DCs in the province is relatively recent – which is no surprise, if we recall that Mél Hogan wrote in 2022 that 90% of DCs had been erected in the last two years. It is, however, part of a longer history of the digital economy in Quebec, a chapter of which opened in the 2010s as Montreal sought to establish itself as an “AI hub”. The city’s strength was to be home to several well-established researchers, including the charismatic figure of Yoshua Bengio, often presented as one of the “founding fathers” of deep learning research. These ambitions have materialized in the construction of an AI town in Montreal’s post-industrial Mile-Ex district, which houses the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA), the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO), and was home to Element AI, a rising star in Quebec tech before its downfall and takeover by a US company in 2020.
Given this desire to be on the global AI map, to find new sources of economic growth in areas that are often deindustrialized, and even to make the Montreal region emerge as yet another “Silicon Valley of the North,” are local administrations inclined to facilitate the installation of DCs? In any case, past examples suggest caution. Around Montreal, the city of Vaudreuil-Dorion sought to position itself in the digital economy by welcoming a DC in 2016. The facility was announced victoriously, along with promises of high-paying jobs and glorious industrial futures. But DCs are not immune to speculative financial logics, shifting corporate strategies, and incessant technological evolution, making their lifespan uncertain. Shortly after its closure in 2017, the site was abandoned, washing away the hopes entertained by the municipal administration that had facilitated its reception.
Large language models: the fantastic ride of the tech bros
In 2024, J. Trudeau’s government announced $2.4 billion of AI investments, more specifically in digital infrastructure. At the time of writing, in early 2025, the political craze for large language models (LLMs) is gathering momentum. D. Turmp’s administration has announced 500 billion (USD) of investment in AI infrastructure as part of the Stargate project, while E. Macron has attempted to join this mad race with the announcement of 109 billion (€) of private investment that should result in the construction of ever larger DCs, and K. Starmer tried appealing to tech giants with a 14 billion (GBP) investment plan and a handful of “AI growth zones” supposed to “turbocharge” technology.
A relatively small number of Silicon Valley players – we can list them: Microsoft through the massive funding it has given to OpenAI (ChatGPT), Meta (Llama), Alphabet (Gemini), Amazon through Anthropic (Claude), and xAI (Grok) – seem to have decided that the future will necessarily involve generative AI. Political leaders are not inclined to question this diagnosis. The socio-environmental consequences of the proliferation of DCs seem to be irrelevant: look away from water and electricity consumptions, and don’t mind the electronic components that populate DCs and rely on large-scale extractivism, only to become e-waste that we struggle to dispose of. Without democratic debate on the social utility of AI technologies, weighed against their socio-environmental costs, little is going to change.
Sherbrooke: when DCs come to town
The purpose of this first interactive map was to provide an overview of the issues raised by the proliferation of DCs in Quebec. Our objective, however, is to analyze in greater detail the relationship between these facilities on the one hand, and the cities that host them on the other. To this end, we conducted a survey in Sherbrooke in 2023-2024, the results of which are presented in a second map “Sherbrooke”.
Hydro-Sherbrooke
At the junction of the Magog and Saint-François rivers, the city of Sherbrooke has been a prime location for the construction of hydroelectric power plants. In 1888, the Sherbrooke Gas & Water Company installed the first power station, which was later acquired by the municipality in 1908.
Sherbrooke became one of the few municipalities in Quebec to be supplied with electricity in the early 20th century, contributing to its economic and industrial development, particularly by powering its textile mills.
In 1963, the Quebec government nationalized electricity and handed the network over to a newly founded public corporation, Hydro-Quebec. Because only private companies were affected by this nationalization, municipalities that owned their power grids continued to operate them.
Today, there are ten such municipalities, including cities like Coaticook and Shawinigan, and Sherbrooke boasts the largest municipally-owned grid in Quebec. Hydro-Sherbrooke generates less than 5% of its electricity sales, the rest being purchased from Hydro-Québec at rates that are sanctioned by the provincial regulatory agency, Régie de l’Énergie.
Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrency is a form of decentralized digital asset that uses cryptography to secure its transactions and control the creation of new units. Unlike traditional fiat money, complex algorithms allow for transactions to be simultaneously anonymized and traceable.
The creation of the first cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) in 2009 sparked heated debates that have been dragging on to this day. The first criticism relates to its energy cost, since each new bitcoin is generated by solving increasingly complex calculations that require immense computing power. A second criticism concerns the status and function of cryptocurrencies. While initial rhetoric pegged them to be an instrument of liberation from the banking system, they have emerged as highly volatile assets that are the object of the most unbridled speculative practices, all without fulfilling the core functions of a fiat currency.
Although cryptocurrency has some of the characteristics of a “real” currency, it is struggling to gain global recognition and to serve as a medium of exchange for daily transactions. Today, the most widely used cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
Bitfarms
Founded in 2017, Bitfarms is a Canadian cryptocurrency mining company (see “Cryptocurrencies”) that focuses exclusively on Bitcoin. It is one of the ten largest Bitcoin mining companies in the world, whose market capitalization has at times exceeded $1.5 billion. As of 2024, Bitfarms’ 12 operational mining farms have secured 2% of the Bitcoin network and total 310 MW of energy consumption per hour.
Of these 12 facilities, eight are in Quebec and three in Sherbrooke: the Leger, Bunker, and Garlock (formerly La Pointe) sites. Following its establishment in 2019, the La Pointe DC was relocated in 2021 after numerous complaints from local residents about the excessive noise caused by the center’s ventilation system.
The power contract
When it moved to Sherbrooke in 2018, Bitfarms became the most important customer of Hydro-Sherbrooke, the operator that supplies the municipality with electricity. The energy contract between Hydro-Sherbrooke and Bitfarms guarantees 96 MW for the company’s operations, as well as a preferential rate of 3.45 cents per kWh. In return, Bitfarms engaged in “peak shaving,” i.e. shut down its consumption during periods of peak electricity demand. This represents around 400 hours of load shedding per year. In 2024, there were three Bitfarms computing centers in Sherbrooke, whose total electricity consumption was equivalent to the average consumption of around 75,000 Canadian households.
When citizens protest
When Bitfarms arrived in Sherbrooke in 2018, it set up its first cryptocurrency factory on the La Pointe site, facing the Magog River. Following its establishment, numerous complaints were made by local residents to the city and to the Ministry of the Environment because of the noise and heat produced by the plant.
Several noise mitigation measures were implemented, such as installing containers in front of the outdoor fans or acoustic screen walls inside the center, to no avail. According to a Radio-Canada article, around 500 local residents experienced daily nuisances linked to noise emanating from the cryptocurrency factory from 2019 to 2022.
In summer 2021, at least two citizen mobilizations took place, during which citizens demanded that the problem of noise pollution be taken seriously by Sherbrooke’s leaders. In 2022, the citizens won their fight, with the relocation of the plant to another industrial zone, further away from residential areas. The case led the municipal administration to engage in a reflection on how to adapt its regulatory framework and urban planning practices to this new type of industry (see “Integrating DCs into urban planning and zoning in the City of Sherbrooke”).
Noise pollution
“Humano District”: DC meets real estate project
Humano District is a real estate project in the center of Sherbrooke, on a hill adjacent to Mont-Bellevue Park, offering over 600 rental units and a small number of shops and services (daycare, etc.). The project includes the renovation of the former Mont-Sainte-Famille convent, as well as a new extension which is breaking ground at the time of writing.
What is more unique to Humano District is the installation of a DC in its basement, which recovers heat from the servers to heat up the building during winter. This DC is owned by Exaion, a subsidiary of the French electricity company EDF, which is working in partnership with Humano and PINQ2 (see “The University and Sherbrooke’s quantum science ecosystem”). By recovering the heat produced by the electronic components – via a hot air circuit (computer room air conditioning, CRAC) or by means of immersion tanks in which the computing units are plunged in oil – the server room makes it possible to heat part of the building complex, and thus reduce its energy consumption.
The University and Sherbrooke’s quantum science ecosystem
Established by the Quebec government in 2020, Innovation Zones are a policy instrument aimed at promoting technological development and increasing economic growth and prosperity in different regions of Quebec, through the creation of collaborative ecosystems. Actors involved include private companies, non-profit organizations, municipalities, and educational institutions.
In addition to DistriQ (in Sherbrooke), the provincial government launched the Energy Transition Valley (Vallée de la transition énergétique) in Bécancour, Shawinigan, and Trois-Rivières, as well as Technum in Bromont. DistriQ is affiliated to the University of Sherbrooke and seeks to foster the development of Quebec’s quantum computing sector. With the aim of becoming a hub for the development of quantum technologies in North America, DistriQ is benefiting from ample investment, including $65.3 million from the Quebec government.
Concurrently, the Plateforme d’innovation numérique et quantique (PINQ2) was launched in Sherbrooke in 2021. This non-profit organization was born from a partnership between the University of Sherbrooke, the Ministry for economy and innovation, and the Ministry for economic and regional development. PINQ2 works primarily with Quebec universities, but also with other players across Canada, to develop and implement AI and quantum computing technologies in small and medium-sized enterprises. The project of an Exaion DC that could service the University of Sherbrooke and adjacent industrial actors emerged from this context, and materialized in the Humano District housing complex (see “‘Humano District’: DC meets real estate project”).
Integrating DCs into urban planning and zoning in the City of Sherbrooke
The establishment of the Bitfarms plant in 2018 was authorized by the City of Sherbrooke despite representing an activity not identified in the zoning: the company is associated with zone 15, which corresponds to industrial activities. Bitfarms acquired three parcels of land, including La Pointe, located near the Magog River. The terms of the supply agreement between Bitfarms and Hydro-Sherbrooke (see “The power contract”) generate considerable income for the city – Hydro-Sherbrooke’s profits go into the municipal budget. In 2025, $18.4 will be generated by the sale of electricity to Bitfarms. However, while the installation of Bitfarms has helped the city out of a delicate financial situation, it has not been without its drawbacks, first and foremost for local residents.
The noise generated by the fans used to cool the servers soon became the subject of strong citizen complaints and protests, which the municipality took seriously. Following the failure of the mitigation measures implemented by the company (container walls, acoustic wall, inspection and revision of fans, reduction in the volume of activities), the City of Sherbrooke created a new “conditional use” in the zoning.
The new “industry” use is called “Industry for digital data processing, production, analysis and storage centers”. This use specifies the new conditions for setting up infrastructures: “the use has a minimal impact in terms of nuisances, such as vibrations and the emission of dust, smoke, odors, light, heat and noise, in order to promote the cohabitation of uses”. Bitfarms then moved to other sites between 2021 and 2022 and had to comply with these new conditions: acoustic louvers were installed, air evacuators were placed on the roof, and the installation allowed heat recovery to supply the interior office spaces.
Sherbrooke’s municipal administration was one of the first in Quebec to introduce standards specifically governing the installation of DCs.
Additional resources
This research draws upon urban studies, science and technology studies (STS), and planning. A review of the literature on data centers (DCs) has been published (in French) in Netcom: it contains numerous references that can help you reflect further on DCs and their relationships with cities and regions.
In addition, several resources seem particularly relevant to us:
- A four-part series from the excellent Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, titled “Data Vampires”;
- The project “Geographies of Digital Wasting”;
- The Spanish collective “Tu Nube Seca Mi Río,” which keeps track of ongoing struggles against the construction of DCs;
- The book Where Cloud is Ground, by Alix Johnson;
- The datacentermap.com website is not exhaustive, but it will help you find out if you live close to a DC.
Team presentation
Morgan is an assistant professor at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS). His work intersects urban studies and STS, to explore the social and political nature of infrastructures and urban services.
Julia Frotey is an assistant professor at the INRS-Université du Québec à Rimouski joint research unit. As a geographer and urban planner, she has been working since 2016 on territorial public action and planning associated with the development of energy transition infrastructures.
Émile Pronovost is a master’s student in population studies at INRS’s Centre Urbanisation Culture Société. His dissertation focuses on cryptocurrency mining, which he studies through the disciplines of geography, political ecology, and STS.
Clover has been writing comics for 15 years, including webcomics! This medium is particularly well-suited to share ideas, emotions, and explore multiple lives. You can find Clover’s latest work here.
Acknowledgements
The interactive maps were funded by the VRM network, and we warmly thank its management and coordination team for their support and enthusiasm. The exploratory research that subtends this work was also made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The designwork of Luc van Ameringen was invaluable in giving these interactive maps their current form, and their integration to the VRM website was orchestrated by Mohammed Hamaidi: we extend our heartfelt thanks to both. Juliette Di Francesco’s watchful eye was immensely helpful as we wrote and revised the text. We would also like to thank the research participants who shared their time and experience with us. Finally, our reflections were nourished by numerous discussions with Dillon Mahmoudi, Ryan Burns, and Jonathan Roberge.
