When it comes to building large data centers to power artificial intelligence, the main challenge is “definitely, without a doubt, 100% power.”
That’s according to Josh Schertzer, the newly appointed CEO of data center developer Beacon AI. The startup, which originated from Nadia Partners, an investment firm headquartered in New York specializing in AI and infrastructure, emerged from stealth in January 2025.
Today, it announced a commitment to develop 4.5 gigawatts of AI data centers in a region that’s not often mentioned when it comes to computing power: Alberta, Canada.
The selection of this secondary market is key to Beacon AI’s strategy to overcome the energy constraint issue that risks delaying around 20% of planned data center projects globally, according to Schertzer, who joined the company after 17 years working for private equity firm Blackstone; most recently, he was the CTO of its technology division.
“In North America, power and energy are scarce, which is creating lots of challenges for the growing need for more compute,” Schertzer said. “The strategy that Beacon has taken to solve this constraint is looking in secondary markets, where others have maybe not played before and power and utilities are quite available.”
The province of Alberta is one such market, from Beacon’s point of view. It is rich in natural resources, accounting for more than half of Canada’s gas production; it has a competitive corporate income tax rate; and it is aiming to become a global AI hub, with Alberta Technology Minister Nate Glubish announcing last December that he plans to facilitate the development of $100 billion of AI infrastructure in the next five years.
Most importantly, it has what has become a rarity in North America these days: excess grid capacity.
Expansion plans
Beacon AI is focusing on six development sites in Alberta, which were purchased as agricultural land and then rezoned. Five of them will each have the capacity to host 400-megawatt data centers, while the sixth is larger. It could reach 1.8 gigawatts in computing capacity, which would make it one of the largest single-site campuses in North America.
Each data center campus will be developed in incremental 100-MW buildings, with first service planned for the end of 2027. Initially, the data centers will operate thanks to a regular grid connection, with the goal of building on-site gas and renewable energy generation farther down the line.
“There’s excess capacity on the grid that we can take advantage of today,” Schertzer said. “That doesn’t mean we can take all of it, [though]. So our [long-term] plan is to leverage both grid power and self-generation opportunities.”
But developing on-site generation capabilities, whether they come from renewables or gas, takes time. “For any company, as a rule of thumb, self-generation wouldn’t come to fruition until 2029 or 2030,” Schertzer added.
In the meantime, the grid provides a quick solution. That’s a stark contrast with crowded regions in the U.S., where a company can spend up to seven years waiting for a grid connection, and data centers are looking at developing on-site generation such as microgrids to get online faster.
In addition to its Alberta opportunities, Beacon AI is also looking at sites in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in Texas, and in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
“But Alberta is where we have the most conviction,” Schertzer said. “It’s where we believe we will be able to provide an astronomical amount of compute and power for our hyperscaler customers in areas that are just not available at this scale in the United States today.”
