Premier Tim Houston says he is pro data centres in the province, just as one of its most contentious business partners voices an interest in building one.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Houston posits now is the time to invest in data centres. Lucky for him, EverWind Fuels are interested in building one, telling CBC that the company is “exploring opportunities”. EverWind has been in the process of setting up several wind farms province-wide and a facility to produce green hydrogen in Point Tupper (depending on the production, it sometimes isn’t all that green).
Data centres are massive facilities housing computer systems and servers that are constantly running, sending and storing information that is used for geographical systems (Google Maps) or, better yet, AI (ChatGPT). These data centres have proven detrimental in several communities in the United States, where they are known to use an absurd amount of water (between 300,000 gallons and 5 million gallons daily) and electricity (about 100,000 homes worth). This has led to higher electricity rates for customers, and in the case of water, contributed to a worsening water supply, especially during droughts in water-stressed areas like Arizona and Texas where two-thirds of data centres are located.
Although he had recently taken an admittedly soft stance against the construction of data centres, now that EverWind is interested, it seems Houston is changing his tune.
“I’ve always said that until there was an actual application before us, there wasn’t much to talk about when it came to data centres in Nova Scotia,” reads the Facebook post from Tim Houston’s account. “Well, the conversation around us has changed quickly.”
The Coast has reached out to the Premier’s Office for clarification on whether Houston’s post has anything to do with EverWind looking into the possibility of a data centre. He has long been a supporter of EverWind Fuels’ green hydrogen project.
Houston says there are a few reasons why he changed his mind on this particular issue.
One, the federal government is encouraging it through national principles established through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Two, Saskatchewan is investing in data centres.
And three, Houston vaguely states that “the world has changed. The uncertainty of our relationship with the United States, increased threats from hostile foreign actors and wars around the world remind us that our data matters.”
He calls data centres critical infrastructure supporting the economy, banking, healthcare, research and government services and that we need to store our data at home in Canada rather than in another nation.
Don’t worry. Houston has some standards of his own as to not let things get too out of hand when a company decides to suck up all on Nova Scotia’s water (of which we sometimes struggle to regulate during droughts, which we were told by the province to expect more of) and make electricity unaffordable for Nova Scotians (Nova Scotia Power would never!)
His list of demands include:
- Meet or exceed the principles established by the federal government;
- Protect water and the environment using a closed-loop cooling system with strict standards around water use, noise and emissions;
- Protect Nova Scotian ratepayers by paying the costs of their electrical use;
- Deliver jobs, training and business opportunities;
- Provide a “direct, financial return to Nova Scotians above and beyond normal taxes.”
One argument made regarding data centres is that if they use so much power, they should generate their own. While EverWind has been tight-lipped about its “exploration” into the concept, the company is also responsible for several proposed wind farms across the province, meaning that the opportunity for them to use their own electricity isn’t zero.
However, Houston’s demands aren’t codified into any sort of legislation besides the standards now set by the federal government, meaning that, like any development, you take what you can get and let things slide where you can for the sake of meaningful progress.
The question is how meaningful this progress will actually be.
The AI Bubble
According to EZ Primary Research CEO Ed Zitron, an AI critic who has been detailing many of the woes of AI systems and the issues they present, the bubble is about to burst. In an interview with Investor’s Business Daily released on Wednesday, Sept 23, Zitron says much of the AI revenue generated are from companies that can’t even afford to pay their own computing costs. “Their future revenues are based on their ability to harvest money from two companies that can quite literally not afford to pay them,” he says.
Also according to Zitron, the bubble will begin to break with data centre debt. Building data centres requires absurd amounts of money and it often means taking on debt to make it happen. However, if those data centres aren’t making up for their high costs in revenue, then it can’t last forever. “I think it will slow and then crash,” said Zitron to Investor’s Business Daily. “And the sign will be data centre projects getting cancelled, as in the ones in planning, the ones under construction and then ones falling apart that’s been built.”
A TechSpot article on the subject suggests this may already be happening. Published in April 2026, it says nearly half of the data centres planned for the US this year are either delayed or outright cancelled due to a lack of energy and components.
So, is it even worth it on a financial level to risk electricity rates, water usage and presumably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in funding to get a data centre off the ground, only for it to crash and burn because AI is a speculative market that can’t cover its own operating costs?
Ask Houston.
