(Photo Credit: O'Leary Ventures)

By Nathaniel Leigh

MD of Greenview

MD of Greenview Reeve expecting AI Data centre project to ‘benefit nonstop’

Dec 12, 2024 | 6:00 AM

The Reeve for the Municipal District of Greenview believes the just-announced AI data centre to be built in the Greenview Industrial Gateway will be great for the region.

The Wonder Valley project was announced Monday as part of a partnership between the MD and O’Leary Ventures. It is expected to be the largest data centre of its kind in the world.

Reeve Tyler Olsen says the construction and operation of the centre will bring tax benefits and new jobs to the community.

“The data centre itself is big yes, but when you factor in all the extra people, if it’s two-four thousand construction jobs for ten plus years, plus the full-time jobs that come on as everything comes online through the phases, and then the spinoff jobs, it’ll just benefit nonstop, and it just multiplies every single time.”

(Photo Credit: Municipal District of Greenview)

Olsen says the project will benefit Greenview as well as surrounding communities like Grande Prairie.

“It’s been good to have the City and the County [of Grande Prairie] with us in the last three- four years, we’ve really come together,” he says. “That’s been a big attraction for this too, how well this region works together. This will benefit everybody. It’s in the MD but it is a truly regional project that we going all have to work together to pull forward through.”

He says artificial intelligence is becoming a part of many people’s everyday lives.

“When it comes down to your phone or your computer, running different things, heck there’s cars that run on it now. So, whether we want to fight it completely, we’re not getting taken over by robots.”

“But it is becoming a bigger part of our lives in every way, and we don’t even realize half the time that we are using it”

More information about the Wonder Valley project can be found here.