Mississauga, Ont. council set to vote on temporary data centre moratorium

Mississauga city council is set to vote today on a one-year data centre moratorium.

The city is the latest in Ontario to consider a pause as it studies what guardrails it could place on energy-intensive data centres fuelling the artificial intelligence boom.

The proposed citywide moratorium would apply to data centres with energy demands over 10 megawatts.

It comes as Prologis, a major U.S.-headquartered firm, pursues a two-storey data centre in a business park in the city’s northwest.

Under pressure from local lawmakers, the province last month released a draft framework that pledged new data centres would cover all their electricity costs and could be charged more than other industrial users.

Oakville last month became the first Ontario municipality to enact a pause after failed bids in Hamilton and Burlington.