Hamilton councillors move forward with AI data centre development pause

City Hall’s proposed pause on any new data centres in Hamilton has easily passed its first vote before council on Tuesday, with councillors rejecting an exemption for smaller facilities.

In a 15-1 vote, council decided to move forward with the moratorium proposed by Ward 3 Coun. Nrinder Nann. The final vote is set for next month’s council meeting.

The proposed pause is framed as an opportunity for city hall to analyse the risks associated with the data centres that power the artificial intelligence boom.

Ward 9 Coun. Brad Clark provided the only opposing vote, having unsuccessfully supported a proposal to include an exemption for smaller-scale research data centres.

The motion for the smaller data centres was defeated 14-2. It was drafted by McMaster Innovation Park and its partner, s2e Technologies. It supported the idea of turning the former Hamilton Spectator building at 44 Frid St. into a data centre.

“The city has spent a good deal of money trying to bring in clean investment, clean industry into that property. This would be one of those investments,” says Clark. “Again it’s the unintentional consequences of an interim control by-law. It’s a very powerful tool and I would expect that there will be appeals on it because it really is impacting investment in our community.”

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According to Nann, the objective of the proposal is to make sure that public health, transparency and community-defined advantages are the primary considerations in future data centre decisions, rather than prioritize unchecked industrial growth.

Similar to other times that council has spoken about AI data centres, members of the community that are opposed to them came and filled the gallery, they were holding signs and made their presence known.

The community says their major concerns about data centres is their effect on the environment, energy, water use and noise.

“Having that in our city scares me. Taking a well informed slower pace at these sorts of technology adoptions would be beneficial for Hamilton,” says Kieran Palmerston.

“From what I’ve known, we’ve kind of been the stomping ground of companies who have decided to push forward without regulations. We have time already so let’s use it. Like my sign says, we need a full stop,” says Eleri.

Hamilton’s acting General Manager of Planning and Economic Development also says he thinks the data centre issue has caused the city some reputational damage when it comes to tech companies investing.

READ MORE: ‘Keep Hamilton human’: protesters rally again at city hall against AI data centres