Kevin O’Leary — higher often known as “Mr. Great” from ABC’s “Shark Tank” — made a shock look at Knowledge Heart World 2025 in Washington, D.C. What’s a enterprise capitalist doing at a significant IT occasion? He’s constructing the world’s largest AI factories, and he’s prepared to speak about it.

The venture, known as Surprise Valley, is a large off-grid AI knowledge heart underneath development in Alberta’s Municipal District of Greenview in Canada. Objective-built for AI workloads, the power will span 6,000 acres and boast a staggering 7.5 gigawatts of energy capability. The preliminary part of 1.5 GW is anticipated to finish within the 2027-2028 timeframe at a price of $2 billion; the rest will likely be added steadily over the following few years.

“Knowledge facilities are in the present day’s gold rush,” mentioned O’Leary throughout his keynote. “AI is in excessive demand, and the strongest market is in corporations of 5 to 500 staff.”

Bypassing prolonged regulatory and grid interconnect delays

O’Leary defined how tough it may be to construct and energy a brand new knowledge heart.

He mentioned the regulatory setting is tough; there are lots of allowing and approval hurdles to beat. Utilities want to take half a decade or extra to ship energy to new clients. He gave an instance of a knowledge heart asking for 250 MW now and 250 MW extra in two years. The response: 25 MW was all they might get — however not for an additional three years.

“If you wish to appeal to traders, you must get a venture operational inside 24 months,” mentioned O’Leary. “We had to determine methods to pull this off when there was no energy obtainable on the grid.”

Answer: Discover sources of stranded energy, particularly massive portions of pure gasoline that won’t have easy accessibility to the market. In that order, he discovered the perfect sources: Alberta, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Virginia.

“Alberta, Canada, is the motherload in North America with about 10 occasions the pure gasoline of all others,” he mentioned.

Creating a knowledge heart with sustainability and residents in thoughts

Surprise Valley is huge on sustainability and neighborhood worth. In addition to being the world’s largest knowledge heart, the campus will likely be surrounded by nature trails and wilderness areas. It may possibly function completely off the grid, however the house owners plan to supply energy to the area people.

The area has an abundance of every little thing required: land, pure gasoline, fiber, individuals, infrastructure, an area polytechnic, hospitals, and extra.

“The capital price of an AI knowledge heart is so excessive that you must construct huge,” mentioned O’Leary. “We’re on the lookout for different websites with related traits to Alberta and the place the federal government is eager to assist.”

Extra Knowledge Heart World 2025 protection: NVIDIA’s Imaginative and prescient For AI Factories | Business Analysts’ Tackle How AI is Revolutionizing Knowledge Heart Energy and Cooling

The “Shark Tank” celeb complained to the Knowledge Heart World viewers in regards to the poor gross sales job the trade has accomplished lately. New knowledge heart initiatives ceaselessly provoke intense native antagonism; he beneficial a change in strategy.

As an alternative of taking energy from an already constrained grid and driving up electrical energy charges in a neighborhood, go in with a plan that features including energy to the world — and have sufficient energy obtainable to present a few of it to the locals so their electrical energy charges don’t rise.

“Arrive on the town to construct extra energy for them at low price, to supply a lot of development jobs for locals, to arrange coaching of technicians who will man the power, to get rid of flaring of pure gasoline to decrease emissions, and to herald tax income by shopping for stranded pure gasoline belongings,” mentioned O’Leary. “Every part comes from the supply of energy in abundance. Stranded pure gasoline is cheap, clear, and we will even put the carbon underground quite than emitting it into the ambiance.”