National DataGuide for Data Centres

AI summary

Petitioners say rapid AI-driven investment in large data centres is increasing demand for electricity, water, land and public infrastructure, and that Canadians lack a standardized way to compare facilities by ownership, purpose, resource use, computing capacity and measurable public benefits. They ask the Government of Canada to establish a national DataGuide framework with a public-facing label (similar to EnerGuide), a standardized metric for computing capacity, and federal standards for issuance, public display, regular renewal, and independent verification.

AI summaries describe petitioners’ requests and claims. Consult the official record for the full text.

Official petition

Petition to the Government of Canada The rapid development of artificial intelligence is driving significant investment in large data centres, creating growing demands for electricity, water, land and public infrastructure; Canadians lack a standardized means of understanding and comparing how large data centres use their computing capacity, the purposes they serve, who owns, operates, and controls them, the resources they consume, and their measurable economic and public benefits; and The Government of Canada is facilitating the development of this infrastructure and has established principles for responsible data centre development, yet there is no standardized national framework for publicly reporting and comparing individual facilities. We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to establish a national "DataGuide" framework for large data centres, including: 1. A standardized, visually distinctive public-facing label, similar in principle to EnerGuide, enabling Canadians to readily understand and compare a facility’s ownership, operation and control, purpose, resource consumption, computing capacity, and measurable economic and public benefits; 2. A standardized metric for expressing and comparing their computing capacity, in terms that permit meaningful comparison among comparable facilities and against their resource consumption; and 3. Federal standards for the issuance, public display, regular renewal, and independent verification of DataGuide information throughout their operating lives.

Government response

No government response is available yet.