Mr. Wonderful — as he likes to call himself — gets a lot of air-time, cast as the heartless a–hole on “Shark Tank.” But it’s Kevin O’Leary, the clear-eyed dealmaker who I need to meet, to explain why he’s backing a $70-billion AI data centre industrial park near Grande Prairie in northwest Alberta.
“This is the largest data centre project on earth,” the 70-year-old entrepreneur enthuses on our Zoom call. With permits already approved, the land regulatory hoops jumped through, the investment adds up to “the lowest cost of energy with the most educated workforce.” On brand, Kevin has dubbed the project site in Alberta, “Wonder Valley.”
After nearly a decade of disdain for Canada as an investment destination, why is this larger-than-life persona in his signature black suit changing the tune? I’m an Albertan; of course I want to believe this project will go ahead. But even if the logistics of this project are as wonderful as billed, why would the big money choose to invest in Canada, now? There’s an unprecedented leadership vacuum in Ottawa and the U.S. president-elect is fanning the flames, badgering Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his recently fired finance minister with threats of a 25-per-cent tariff on Canadian imports to the U.S., even taunts about Canada becoming America’s 51st state.
When Kevin initially pitched this $70-billion AI data centre project to big sovereign wealth funds in Europe, they told him nobody’s going to invest in Canada; the place has been tainted for nine years. His version of those conversations goes like this: “I said, ‘Guys, I’m gonna need 70 billion.’ And they said, ‘Where’s the destination project?’ I said, ‘Alberta, Canada.’ And they said, ‘Mm-mm-mm. They don’t have permits…. You can’t get them from Ottawa, everybody knows that.’”
The Canadian Dream has been a nightmare for the past nine years, Kevin agrees, and except for some legacy businesses, he hasn’t invested anything in the country since Trudeau was elected. “I did what everybody else did,” he shrugs, “sell everything in Canada, take the hit, and move the cash out of there.” This, from a guy who calls Canada home.
But he’s had a change of heart. “Everybody is announcing a data centre with not a chance in hell of building it, except Alberta… If you can find a better spot in North America than Alberta, go there,” he says, “But you won’t.”
Everybody is announcing a data centre with not a chance in hell of building it, except Alberta… If you can find a better spot in North America than Alberta, go there. But you won’t
Kevin O’Leary
Obviously, the falling Canadian dollar makes the investment more cost competitive. “Imagine how attractive the Alberta project, Wonder Valley, looks with the Trudeau peso,” Kevin beams. “The Canadian dollar is worthless on its way to who knows where. But every time it drops another two per cent, it makes that project even more exciting.”
Yet there’s more to Kevin’s pitch than an opportunity to capitalize on a devalued Canadian dollar. He’s boldly telling the world: Canada is open for business again. “I know Trump,” Kevin continues, “he’s a rational guy. He’s just starting to negotiate for NAFTA 3.0, that’s what he’s doing. I’ve told the staffers, don’t bother with Trudeau, you’re going to be dealing with a guy named Pierre.
“The legacy of Justin Trudeau will be the idiot king,” Kevin asserts, his voice animated. “He’s a little mouse, running around the kitchen. His party has a broom and they’re going to get that little mouse, they’re going to get him pretty soon. And he’ll be gone. And then Pierre has to come in and start fixing.”
I can’t help but laugh, and think to myself, this is the same kind of silly but engaging story that Donald Trump would tell. Maybe it’s their shared experience as marquee players on reality TV that hones that ability. Our conversation is peppered with lots of bombast, but beyond the glare of the TV cameras, this one-on-one also offers up glimpses of what really goes on in the mind of this successful Canadian entrepreneur, when you peel away the bluster.
This guy believes he can attract sovereign wealth back to Canada, because we have something no other country has: power. The only other country with this much power is Russia, he quips, and “nobody’s gonna build anything there.”
“A data centre,” he explains, “requires one thing above all else, power.” Three years ago, you could build a small data centre with 100 megawatts of power but the market has changed, Kevin reports, and the large tenants, companies like Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft and OpenAI, require one gigawatt of power, minimum. “A gig is a million homes of power,” he says, and you can’t just buy that off the grid or “everybody’s electrical bill, wherever you are, is going to go up 20 per cent the next morning.”
O’Leary Ventures, Kevin’s venture capital platform, has spent time and money pursuing data centre projects — in the U.S. states of Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia — and they’ve learned the electricity grid in America is tapped out. To build a data centre, you have to create your own power, Kevin continues. “We have to find either nuclear power, which isn’t going to be ready for 15 years and it’s very expensive, or stranded gas that was going to be flared off and instead, get it into clean turbines and make electricity.”
Every jurisdiction is competing for data centres — and associated high-paying jobs — Kevin reports, so when he got a call from one of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s staffers, asking, ‘Why aren’t you coming to Alberta?’ he replied, tersely: “Nobody invests in Canada anymore, you know that. You can’t get the permits. Justin Trudeau has shut you down.”
Kevin knew Alberta had lots of natural gas, but he didn’t know the 5,000 acres of industrial land in the Municipal District of Greenview — enough to site a $70-billion AI data centre — was already permitted. “Danielle Smith and the previous governments have been working on building an oil refinery there for the last 12 years,” Kevin explains, “and the permits also allow for alternate uses.” As well, the UCP government in Alberta had gone to court and won the sovereign right to decide what’s going to happen with energy in the province.
Last August, Kevin sent his team to Alberta to do more due diligence. After a helicopter ride over the proposed site, Carl Agren, the team’s lead, called Kevin to say, “I don’t believe what I’m seeing here. There’s thermal, there’s gas, there’s roads, there’s fibre, there’s people, and there’s thousands of acres already permitted. Buy it now.”
Kevin’s next step was inviting Premier Smith on a “secret mission” — an unofficial visit — to Abu Dhabi to tour some of the largest data centres in the world, and meet with owners of the transformer makers. “You know, I said, ‘Listen Danielle, nobody believes you around the world. There’s not a sovereign wealth fund that will invest in Canada. You’re going to have to come with me on a plane. We’re going to have to fly around the world. They’re going to have to look you in the eye because no one wants to get screwed by Trudeau again.’”
“That woman (Premier Smith) is a firecracker,” Kevin laughs. “I was nervous because I’d never worked with her before,” he admits, “But wow! Now that is a leader…. She has to be let loose because she is a friggin’ hero and she is going to bring capital back to Canada.”
Kevin has been working on this project day-in and day-out, meeting seven days a week with his team to churn through the complicated logistics. “This is the most exciting project I’ve ever done in my life,” he enthuses. And reverting back to his trademark swagger, he boasts: “This is the largest real estate development in Canadian history. It’s the largest data centre development in history. It has the most power at the lowest cost.”
As my dad would say, he’s more feathers than chicken. But underneath all that bluster, Kevin’s on a mission to revive Canada’s economy. His investment horizon isn’t limited to Alberta; he’s extending an invitation to every premier of every province to call him. “But you better call me with permits,” he squints.
And should Canada’s revival require an economic union with America, Kevin is onside with that bold idea. In response to Trump’s Christmas message shared on the platform X — which included yet another overture to “Governor Justin Trudeau” for Canada to become America’s 51st state — Kevin promptly replied with an offer to negotiate this economic union. “There’s 41 million Canadians sitting on the world’s largest amounts of all resources, including the most important, energy and water,” Kevin posted on X on Dec. 26.
“Nobody wants Trudeau to negotiate this deal,” he declares, so Kevin’s on his way to Mar-a-Lago, to start the narrative.
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