I made a last minute addition to my Friday, May 22, 2026 posting “Vancouver (Canada), AI data centres, and the Mayor’s 11 AI agents (3 of 3),” about a hastily organized protest in Vancouver to be held on Saturday, May 23, 2026. Now, I have an update.
From a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news online with files from Troy Charles, Shaurya Kshatri, and Rosanna Tiranti, this May 23, 2026 news item provides coverage of the event, Note: A link has been removed,
Hundreds of people marched through Vancouver on Saturday [May 23, 2026] to protest two planned AI data centres in the city, raising concerns about the amount of water and energy such facilities can use as the region faces tighter water restrictions.
The demonstration began at Waterfront Station, where protesters gathered before marching toward Granville Island as they chanted against artificial intelligence and carried signs opposing the construction of new data centres in Vancouver.
Torin LaRocque, who organized the protest, said he wants the city and federal government to stop the projects.
“We should just not have any data centres in Canada, period,” he said. “Instead of focusing on these giant corporations, our government should be focusing on its citizens,” LaRocque said.
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Regardless of what you think of LaRocque’s position “We should just not have any data centres in Canada, period …”, he has a point, “Instead of focusing on these giant corporations, our government should be focusing on its citizens …”.
The CBC news online May 23, 2026 news item gives a brief description of the two Telus (telecommunications company) AI data centres planned for Vancouver and then proceeds to the crux of the matter where the protestors are concerned,
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The first Vancouver project, located at the former Hootsuite headquarters in Mount Pleasant, will come online later this year. A second facility at 150 West Georgia Street is planned for 2029.
The project has the backing of the B.C. government, which rolled out its own AI data centre power policy in January [2026].
The City of Vancouver is also throwing its support behind the proposal, with Mayor Ken Sim calling the data centres “world-class facilities.”
But protesters say the public has not been given enough information about the environmental impacts and raised concerns over rising electricity demand and massive water consumption linked to AI data centres.
“Why should we be using so much water for these AI data centres rather than using that water to help our people,” [emphasis mine] said LaRocque.
The protest comes as Metro Vancouver remains under Stage 2 water restrictions, which bans lawn watering, and prepares for the likely move to Stage 3 restrictions sometime in June [2026]..[emphases mine]
Linda Parkinson, director of water services at Metro Vancouver, said there is no regional policy specifically for data centres.
She said a facility of that size would be treated like any other large water user.
“Both the city and Metro would have concerns and questions about a large water user coming in,” Parkinson said.
She said the key question would be whether the facility recycles water and avoids drawing heavily from the region’s water system.
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Telus has claimed that at least one of these AI data centres is ‘green ‘ according to the CBC news online May 23, 2026 news item, Note: A link has been removed,
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According to the company [Telus], the facilities will run on 98 per cent clean hydro power and recycle enough waste energy to heat 150,000 homes. It says the projects will also use 90 per cent less water than a traditional data centre, and that it is working on plans to incorporate recycled water from B.C. Place stadium.
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Concerns about data centre power and water use have become a flashpoint in communities across North America as tech companies seek to expand their operations to keep up with AI’s growing power need.
One 2023 study estimated that generating between 10 and 50 medium-sized responses with AI chatbot ChatGPT used half a litre of water, while a separate study by the International Energy Agency, estimated data centres used 140 billion litres of water globally just for cooling in 2023.
The title of Isaac Phan Nay’s May 25 2026 article “Got Questions About AI Data Centres in Vancouver? Here Are Answers” for The Tyee is a little misleading. He also provides some detailed information I haven’t seen elsewhere, e.g., what the various levels of government are doing with regard to AI data centres, Note: Links have been removed,
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On May 11 [2026], federal Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon joined Telus CEO Darren Entwistle to announce the expansion of AI data centres in downtown Vancouver and Kamloops.
The company plans to expand its existing data centre in Kamloops and open two new AI data centres in Vancouver: one at 150 W. Georgia St., near BC Place stadium in downtown Vancouver, and another at 111 E. 5th Ave. in the city’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood — formerly the headquarters of technology company Hootsuite. The telecom company is calling the cluster an “AI factory.”
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The boom also comes while BC Hydro expects the province will need up to an additional 9,700 gigawatt hours of additional electricity each year by 2035 — nearly double the current output of the Site C dam.
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The Tyee reached out to Telus, the City of Vancouver, BC Hydro, the federal government and project proponents for more information about how the three new government-backed data centres will affect residents in Vancouver and Kamloops.
The developer of the new projects, Westbank, did not respond to The Tyee’s requests for comment.
Why is the government helping to build AI data centres?
The Telus data centres are the first announced for consideration through the federal government’s new program to invest in AI infrastructure.
Artificial Intelligence Minister [Evan] Solomon’s office said in an email that the federal government is entering discussions with Telus because the company’s projects may help advance Canada’s need for AI infrastructure to be built in Canada.
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Despite announcing Telus’s data centre expansion, the federal government has not yet agreed on any terms or amounts to fund, finance or invest in the project. Instead, it is entering discussions with Telus and the proponents of about 160 other projects before considering support for any centres.
Solomon’s office added it’s assessing projects based on whether they can strengthen Canadian sovereignty, provide enough AI compute capability, support Canadian companies and researchers, create economic and ecosystem benefits, include Indigenous participation, demonstrate a credible energy plan, move forward on a realistic timeline and provide value for Canada.
“This is not just about who can build the biggest data centre,” Solomon’s office said. “Any potential federal support would need to be tied to clear public value.”
Ottawa [i.e., the federal government] is spending big on building out AI infrastructure. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada previously told The Tyee the department has committed $925.6 million to support large-scale, sovereign AI infrastructure, which includes data centres.
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Phan Nay’s May 25 2026 article “Got Questions About AI Data Centres in Vancouver? Here Are Answers” is a good read for anyone interested in how various interests are affecting the placement of AI data centres in Vancouver and elsewhere in British Columbia and Canada.
Meanwhile, Telus responds to the protest, from a May 25, 2026 article by Daniel Chai for the Daily Hive, which also makes mention of a future protest being planned, Note: Links have been removed,
A massive protest march against the proposed cluster of AI data centres in Vancouver over the weekend has prompted a response from Telus, one of the companies behind the project.
The Canadian telecommunications giant contacted Daily Hive just hours after the demonstration throughout the streets of Vancouver drew hundreds of people.
The group behind the protest march, No AI Data Centres in Vancouver, is also planning a second march during the last weekend of June.
Telus announced earlier in May that it was moving ahead with plans to build a major sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure network in British Columbia.
This includes new AI data centres at two Westbank properties in Vancouver that could become fully operational before the end of this decade.
“We view our investment in Canada’s sovereign AI backbone as a critical national asset – for Canadians, by Canadians – estimated to inject $9 billion into the Canadian economy and safeguarding our nation’s most sensitive data,” a Telus representative told Daily Hive.
“We have applied our core sustainability principles to our AI Factories, because we believe Canada should lead the AI revolution without compromising on its climate leadership. Designed to be the world’s most sustainable sovereign AI data centres, our Vancouver facilities will set a new global standard for sustainable AI infrastructure.”
Torin LaRocque, an initiator of No AI Data Centres in Vancouver, previously shared that one of the top negative issues surrounding the proposed facilities is their impact on the environment.
“Telus states that the new AI Data Centres use 90 per cent less energy than the average centre,” said the Vancouver resident. “However, they also state that they will have more than 60,000 GPUs on the conservative side.
“[If] each GPU will process an AI prompt a day, that is still over 1,400 litres of water being used a day. Vancouver is already under Stage 2 water restrictions. Why should we let these data centres use the water that Vancouver’s population needs?”
Telus responded by saying that its AI Data Centres will be powered by 98 per cent renewable energy from BC Hydro using a closed-loop liquid cooling system.
The telecommunications company added that it will be 80 per cent more energy-efficient than a traditional data centre and consumes 90 per cent less water, equal to an estimated 300 million litres saved each year.
“Rather than expelling waste heat into the atmosphere, our facilities are engineered to capture it and feed it directly into Vancouver’s Neighbourhood Energy Utility in Mount Pleasant and Creative Energy’s downtown district energy system, heating the equivalent of 150,000 homes in Metro Vancouver, effectively using every electron twice, to produce environmentally responsible Sovereign AI infrastructure,” explained Telus.
The No AI Data Centres in Vancouver protest march drew an estimated 750 people on Saturday, May 23 [2026] , in Downtown Vancouver. [emphasis mine]
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According to BC Hydro, the utility and the Province are taking a “managed and phased approach to serving these large new loads to protect affordability and reliability for residential customers.”
No AI Data Centres in Vancouver is planning to hold a second protest march on Saturday, June 27, [2026] at 1 p.m.
The demonstration will begin at Waterfront Station, head to 150 W. Georgia St. — which is a proposed site for an AI Data Centre — and continue across the Cambie Bridge before concluding at Vancouver City Hall.
Reusing waste heat generated by the GPUs and consuming 90% less water both sound good. Of course, Telus hasn’t offered any information about how much water will be consumed in the first place even if they are using 90% less. As researchers find ways to make more energy efficient hardware, AI use proliferates (e.g. one AI agent today and tomorrow you could be like Vancouver’s mayor Ken Sim who uses 11 AI agents).
It’s nice to know that the waste heat generated by the GPUs could be used for heating homes but “effectively using every electron twice,” doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me. Aren’t all electrons used more than once? If someone out there cares to explain, please do leave a comment.
There are other issues such as noise and housing although the energy and water issues are predominating the discussion at the moment.
As for the second protest planned for June 27, 2026, that’s during the 2026 FIFA World Cup period where much of downtown Vancouver is considered part of a zone where transit and movement is somewhat restricted. That could lead to some interesting places.
Should you be curious about the three-part series mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the first two parts focused on environmental issues (Environmental impact of AI data center(re) boom: a roadmap [1 of 3]} a May 20, 2026 posting and (AI climate impact much smaller than many feared? So says a study from University of Waterloo, Canada [2 of 3]) a May 21, 2026 posting. As noted in the above, the last part was “Vancouver (Canada), AI data centres, and the Mayor’s 11 AI agents (3 of 3)” on May 22, 2026,