It’s time to build affordable homes, a national network of public grocery stores, electric buses and an east-west clean energy grid.

[avilewis@mstdn.ca]

It’s time to build affordable homes, a national network of public grocery stores, electric buses and an east-west clean energy grid. Not massive corporate AI data centres unleashed without any democratic debate.

There's also no real data sovereignty in an AI ecosystem dominated by U.S. tech giants. Telus may be Canadian-owned, but it has already transferred 14 petabytes of Canadian data onto Google Cloud as part of its AI strategy.

This is a technology that will bring sweeping changes at a scale and speed never seen before. Canadians deserve real oversight and a robust regulatory framework before we rush ahead.


That’s why we’re calling for an immediate pause on the construction of any new AI data centres until strong federal guardrails are in place.

We can’t sit back and let Big Tech billionaires decide our future for us.

Plan unveiled for 'sovereign AI data centre' cluster in Kamloops, Vancouver | CBC News

Vancouver and Kamloops will be home to a new data centre cluster under a planned partnership announced by the federal government and Telus.

CBC (www.cbc.ca)

#cdnpoli #BCpoli #AI

[renata@cosocial.ca]

@avilewis I would love to take a peek at this sovereign AI plan and how much of it stays within Canadian borders

I wish we were building a Canadian alternative to AWS / Azure / Google for computing - there is no real solution for anyone in Canada who wants to host their workloads. Zero. Europe has a few but we don’t. We should be addressing that.

[pawv@tech.lgbt]

@avilewis if they *have* to build data centers, then they should build affordable housing on top of it, and repurpose the exhaust to heat those homes in winter.

[dragonfrog@mastodon.sdf.org]

@renata @avilewis I agree - the thing we know we need is "old fashioned" cloud computing infrastructure.

We might need AI infrastructure, or it might turn out that once venture capital bills come due and the AI companies can't operate at a massive loss, the price they have to charge is such that AI demand ends up being quite small, and all the AI data centres the world needs might already have been built.

But regular plain old file storage and web and email hosting stuff - we for sure need.

[renata@cosocial.ca]

@dragonfrog @avilewis Exactly. I host my personal workloads on Scaleway, in France, just to keep it out of the US.

But I know Canadian businesses consider using Canadian region on AWS / Azure “good enough”. That is millions, possibly billions of CAD going to US providers and they still have control over our data. Just because it “sits” here doesn’t mean Canada owns it.

[rjohnston@techhub.social]

@avilewis Boomerang routing is probably the low-hanging fruit of digital sovereignty.

Network traffic between 2 points within Canada crosses the border into the US and comes back again (and not because that's the shortest route).

[numodular@c.im]

@avilewis #TechBros #FossilFuels #grift

[ronago@mastodon.social]

@dragonfrog @renata @avilewis Looking at how things have gone for US cities hosting AI infrastructure, I think it's safe to say we don't need to be getting in on this.

[n01100010@zeroes.ca]

@avilewis
How about no AI data centres. Period.

Not "until there's democratic debate" or "federal guardrails".

[joblakely@mastodon.social]

@avilewis
Thank you.

[joblakely@mastodon.social]

@pawv @avilewis
Absolutely not. Those things generate more than heat. They create information energy density and EMFs. Very destructive to life. We run on neurons and electrical energy. That messes with it so bad. And that much density of information is poorly understood, (density increases gravity, curvature of SpaceTime) but I would suggest everyone learn about Maxwell’s Demon, which is what Data Centers/ AI are.
I did a podcast about it. 7 years ago.
https://mastodon.social/@JoBlakely/116561773079351229

[virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca]

@avilewis We have Calgary Co-op and its prices are not lower. They even have their own brands. Industry concentration is also further up the supply chain. Distribution, manufacturing.

[rjohnston@techhub.social]

@avilewis https://www.cigionline.org/articles/canadian-network-sovereignty/

[joshg@mathstodon.xyz]

@avilewis Thank you. This sounds bonkers - how in the world is it environmentally sound to "recycle" water from Vancouver's BC Place, at a data center that's a 4 hr drive away? There's no way this is anything but greenwashing.

[joshg@mathstodon.xyz]

@renata @avilewis Canadian institutions should be building self-hosted solutions on proven technologies like Nextcloud. UBC moved in this direction recently after the Canvas debacle.

We don't need a "Canadian" cloud, we just need to remember that running our own servers isn't actually that hard.

[joshg@mathstodon.xyz]

@N01100010 @avilewis I mean, on the plus side, if we just stall them for like 6 more months the AI bubble will probably finish bursting and take care of the problem for us.

[rightsprung@c.im]

@avilewis

Of course it's Telus. The company impossible to actually deal with. We could actually be doing a lot of great things, but we're not because they want big business involved in everything.

[markgrieveson@mindly.social]

@avilewis

I'm glad you're calling this out. Here's a Nora Loreto article on the same topic that may be of interest:

Carney's AI promise that no one asked for

Update: Evan Solomon promised an average of $1.5M to 44 AI companies in Canada.

(noraloreto.substack.com)

[the5thcolumnist@ottawa.place]

@avilewis

Data centres built to store Canadian data in Canada rather than the US are a good thing.

Data centres built to waste energy and water while enabling AI crap are evil.

[canleaf@mastodon.social]

@avilewis Stay Strong, T'kemlups.