“We are often most afraid of technology when we can see the machinery behind the magic.” – MJ Martin
The Invisible Intelligence Around Us
Artificial intelligence has already become ordinary. Canadians encounter it when a bank flags a suspicious transaction, a smartphone improves a photograph, a navigation application reroutes around traffic, an email service catches spam, a streaming service recommends a program, or a retailer predicts what should be stocked tomorrow. Most of these encounters do not feel like AI because there is no talking robot announcing itself. The technology is more like electricity in the walls. We notice the light, not the electrons moving behind the switch.
The transition is measurable. Statistics Canada reported that 19.2 percent of Canadian businesses used AI to produce goods or deliver services in the second quarter of 2026, up from 12.2 percent in 2025 and 6.1 percent in 2024. Among Canadian workers, reported use of generative AI nearly doubled from 17 percent in September 2024 to 30 percent by July 2025. AI is therefore not some approaching technological event. It is already woven into our economy and daily lives. (Statistics Canada)
The Frankenstein Problem
That makes the hostility toward AI data centres particularly fascinating. People happily use digital maps, cloud storage, fraud detection, search engines, streaming video and AI assistants, then object to the physical infrastructure increasingly required to provide those services. It is rather like demanding unlimited hot water while protesting the existence of the water heater.
There is an interesting psychology at work. Benefits arrive individually and quietly. Costs arrive collectively and visibly. A useful recommendation on a telephone seems trivial. A proposed 300-megawatt data centre appears on a planning map as an enormous industrial project. Humans naturally react more strongly to the visible object. Social media can then amplify that reaction until repetition begins masquerading as evidence.
I would hesitate to say that 90 percent of the criticism is mythology because there is no defensible evidence for that percentage. But the underlying observation is reasonable. Many claims take legitimate concerns and inflate them into predictions of catastrophe.
Myth Versus Engineering
AI data centres are not harmless. They consume electricity, require transmission capacity, generate heat and can require substantial cooling infrastructure. These are real engineering issues.
Alberta illustrates the scale. The Alberta Electric System Operator reported more than 20,000 MW of requested data-centre load by the third quarter of 2025. That does not mean 20,000 MW will actually be built, but it demonstrates why grid planners must proceed carefully. Ontario’s IESO projects commercial data-centre electricity consumption increasing from roughly 3 TWh in 2026 to 16 TWh by 2050. (AESO)
Yet context matters. The International Energy Agency estimates that data centres represented about 1.5 percent of global electricity consumption in 2024 and projects that share at just under 3 percent by 2030. Significant, certainly. Apocalyptic, no. (IEA)
The Real Paradox
Canada should debate where data centres are built, how they are powered, who pays for grid expansion, how water is managed and how efficiently the facilities operate. The Canada Energy Regulator already models data-centre growth as one component of Canada’s much broader increase in electricity demand. That is planning, not panic. (Canada Energy Regulator)
The deeper paradox remains fascinating. Why do we fear the data centre while enthusiastically consuming the services it provides? Would opposition change if developers supplied their own low-carbon generation and paid for required infrastructure? Are we assessing AI through engineering evidence, or through whichever frightening claim received the most clicks?
Perhaps Frankenstein is the wrong analogy after all. The monster may not be artificial intelligence. It may be our extraordinary ability to frighten one another about technologies we are already using every day.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.