Data Centres

Yes. The City’s Official Plan and Zoning By-law apply to all development.  Under the City's Zoning By-law, data centres are defined as  “Information and Data Processing” use, which is permitted in the City’s employment zones.

All new employment area development, including expansions to existing buildings, are required to follow the Site Plan Control process. Site Plan does not deal with property use; rather, it focuses on how a property is developed. The Planning Act requires that Site Plan approval be delegated to City staff.  Because the use is permitted by the Official Plan and Zoning By-law, the public and Council are not part of the review and approval process. 

The Site Plan process ensures that the proposed building complies with the setback, height and size regulations of the Council-approved Zoning By-law, as well as parking and landscaping requirements. Staff also review the grading, driveway location and servicing such as water, wastewater and stormwater, as part of the site plan review process.

City staff also consult with Waterloo Region and Grandbridge Energy as part of the Site Plan review. Any comments, concerns or conditions of approval from these agencies are included in the conditions of Site Plan approval.

A building permit is mandatory for new constructions or alterations to an existing building and must comply with the Zoning By-law. A building permit must be issued once the applicant demonstrates that all requirements of the Ontario Building Code have been met.

There is a data centre along Vondrau Drive that has been in existence since 2010.

Council’s approved a water allocation policy prioritizing Cambridge’s available water capacity. High-water users, defined as 0.231 L/s or greater, are ranked lowest in  priority, while housing and major employment opportunities are ranked higher.

Electricity service is not automatic. Data centre operators must request service from GrandBridge Energy. If capacity is available after accounting for housing and community needs, excess capacity may be allocated. Depending on demand, a future data centre may need to wait several years for electricity capacity.

While data centres have been around in some variation since the early 1970s, modern data centres with networking and client-server computing expanded in the 1980s. Larger cloud facilities emerged in the 2000s with Cambridge’s first large scale data centre in 2010. 

Data centres support essential technology services, including AI tools and secure data storage for health care, hospitals, financial institutions and other sectors.

The federal government has stated that access to domestic compute infrastructure is crucial for:

• AI development
• Research and innovation
• Economic competitiveness
• Protection of Canadian intellectual property and data
• National digital sovereignty

The government's stated objective is to keep Canadian AI capacity, expertise and data resources on Canadian soil. 

It has been reported that the current federal government position is to encourage and accelerate the development of data centres in Canada, particularly AI and cloud-computing facilities, while emphasizing Canadian sovereignty, economic growth, and domestic compute capacity.

Ontario has identified AI infrastructure, and digital technology as strategic economic sectors. The Province has stated that data centres can support:

• Investment attraction
• High-quality jobs
• Domestic data hosting
• Digital sovereignty
• Growth of Ontario's digital economy

A concern is power demand.  Ontario forecasts that data centres could account for approximately 13% of new electricity demand by 2035. The Province, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), and the Ontario energy sector are all planning for significant growth in data-centre electricity consumption.

1. Data Centres Must Pay the Full Cost of Electricity

Ontario has stated that new data centres will be required to pay the full cost of their electricity demand and related system impacts. The Province is proposing a new electricity rate class for large data centres (greater than 1 MW) that would be higher than existing industrial rates. The intent is to ensure costs are not passed on to residential or other business ratepayers.

2. Community Benefits Required

Data centre proponents will be expected to make meaningful investments in host communities. This could include infrastructure, workforce development, local employment opportunities and other community benefits.

3. Environmental Standards

Ontario signaled that projects using water-efficient cooling technologies, such as closed-loop cooling systems, will be favoured. Projects must also satisfy provincial water use and noise standards.

4. New Provincial Approval Authority

Recent legislative changes give the Minister of Energy and Mines the final authority over large-load electricity connection approvals, including data centres. This means the Province will play a greater role in determining which projects may connect to Ontario's electricity grid.

5. Focus on Data Sovereignty

A major objective of the framework is to keep Canadian data within Canada. The Province identified data security and digital sovereignty as one of the three core pillars guiding future approvals.

Three Approval Pillars

Ontario's proposed assessment framework evaluates projects based on:

1. Economic development and job creation.
2. Data security and digital sovereignty.
3. Community investment.

On July 19, 2026, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) was contacted and subsequently commenced an investigation on a potential spill at the site. 

It has been reported in the media that this may have been a naturally occurring bacterial bloom rather than a chemical leak. 

Any inquiries should be directed to the MECP as they are the authority having jurisdiction.