The future-focused nature of the hub, dubbed the AHI Hub of Innovation just north of Red Deer, is represented by the first major pieces of equipment for the 120-acre site that arrived this week, an initial set of Rolls-Royce hydrogen-ready reciprocating engines.

Speaking to allAlberta on Wednesday, Sunny Sarpal said the engines can use natural gas at first and be converted to use hydrogen later when that energy source is more economical.

“We kind of designed this as almost like a phased plan, so that way we’re not building one big infrastructure asset, we’re really kind of building in a phased methodology based on procurement of assets, our regulatory climate, our permitting,” he said.

The first phase is underway with the construction of 10 megawatts of power capacity and a 10,800-square-foot modular data centre at the Blindman Industrial Park, set to be completed later this year.

The initial phase’s infrastructure spending is pegged at $100 million, but that doesn’t include the computing components for the data centre.

“Our project does have the plan of growing up to 250 megawatts of power and being able to build up to 33 of those data centre clusters where we’re going to go build that 10 megawatts at a time,” he said.

Once the full project is built, it could see between $6 billion and $12 billion in capital expenditures, depending on computing requirements.

The project is backed by private capital, including investment from Sunny Sarpal and family, as well as Ron Maurice of Maurice Law, an Indigenous-owned law firm.

“We don’t want to build a dream and build a large-scale project from day one that may just be pie in the sky,” said Sarpal.

“We’re taking the actual steps to put our foot forward and really try to create something unique here.”

Havenz has designs on a massive complex with 1.3 million square feet of leasable space, including data centres, vertical farming, manufacturing, a virtual production studio, and an automated brewery or distillery.

Contact:
kieran@allalberta.com
403-333-3474