Wonder Valley photos and renderings show the vision for a $70 billion, 7,000-acre campus in remote northwestern Alberta.
Images courtesy of O’Leary Ventures and Greenview Industrial Gateway
Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary bets $70 billion on a new AI park in Alberta.
you know him as Kevin O’Leary, star of the hit TV show Shark Tank and mega-investor who’s earned the nickname Mr. Wonderful. To residents of Alberta, Canada, the native Canadian is about to be known as the developer of the world’s largest AI data center park.
Located in the Municipal District of Greenview in northwestern Alberta, the project is called Wonder Valley and, upon buildout, will represent $70 billion of capital investment on a 7,000-acre tract in the heart of the northern Canadian wilderness.
Slated to be built in phases over the next decade, the project could reach 7.5 GW upon completion and employ thousands of highly skilled workers.
The official kickoff of the project was announced on December 10, 2024, in Greenview by O’Leary and leaders of the municipal district after O’Leary’s firm signed a letter of intent to purchase the land.
O’Leary, chairman of O’Leary Ventures, the Miami-based company heading up the development, said, “My joint venture team led by Paul Palandjian, CEO of O’Leary Ventures, and Carl Agren, CEO of HPC and AI Data Centers, has sourced what we believe is the most compelling site in all of North America to generate over 7.5 gigawatts of low-cost power to hyperscalers over the next five to 10 years. Given existing permits, proximity to stranded sources of natural gas, pipeline infrastructure, water and a fiber-optic network within just a few kilometers of the Greenview Industrial Gateway, we will be in the ground and up and running sooner than any scale project of its kind.”
The project is unique for several reasons:
It sits on the largest deposit of natural gas in North America.
It represents the largest private capital investment in Alberta history and in Canadian history.
It is designed to operate off the grid.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith recently declared that Alberta has 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. Wonder Valley would be built on top of that deposit and source the gas for its electrical power, says CEO Palandjian. Wonder Valley one day could access up to 12% of Alberta’s natural gas supply.
“At $70 billion, this proposed data center mega-project is set to be the largest investment in Alberta’s history and the largest investment of its kind in the world,” Premier Smith said in an email response to a query from Site Selection. “The jobs, economic diversification and wealth generated will benefit Albertans for generations. I’m excited to see this incredible project led by Kevin O’Leary coming to Wonder Valley, located in the Municipal District of Greenview. With Alberta’s low taxes, free market, abundant natural gas and skilled labor force, we’re positioned to be a world leader in AI data centers.”
“My joint venture team… has sourced what we believe is the most compelling site in all of North America to generate over 7.5 gigawatts of low-cost power to hyperscalers over the next five to 10 years.”
— Kevin O’Leary, Founder & Chairman, O’Leary Ventures
‘The Stars Were Aligned’
Palandjian says “the stars were aligned” to make the deal happen. “Kevin has always been a guy who sees trends in the marketplace,” the CEO says. “He tries not to get caught up in the boom and bust. Kevin is averse to the risk of having to pick a winner. He would rather invest in the picks and shovels.”
That led to a meeting with Carl Agren, who developed one of the first AI data centers in Abu Dhabi.
“That got us very interested,” says Palandjian. “We focused on places where you can find low-cost power. You need the four P’s to be successful: power, ping — or fiber-optic networks —people and policy. Ultimately, the things that drive a pro forma for a data center include a relatively smooth pathway to permits; an advantageous tax regime and incentives; and not too many regulatory restrictions that would impede your ability to deliver all the redundancy required and maintainable systems.”
Palandjian says that O’Leary Ventures found all of that in Greenview in northwestern Alberta — even though that was not the first place the company looked. West Virginia was, followed by North Dakota.
“Ninety days ago, we were boots on the ground for the first time and looked at four locations in Alberta: Greater Calgary, Medicine Hat, the Industrial Heartland and the Municipal District of Greenview near Grand Prairie,” says Palandjian. “That is where we found what we believe is a total unicorn for a couple of reasons: It has a tremendous amount of land. You need an acre per megawatt. We needed thousands of acres. We have that in the Greenview Industrial Gateway, or GIG. They had assembled the land. They had established permitted use of the land. They had spent a tremendous amount of time and resources in upgrading the land by improving Highway 40 and adding fiber backbone.”
The clincher, he said, was the power. “Producing power from natural gas is much cheaper than buying nuclear energy,” Palandjian says. “We know that the small nuclear reactors are not going to be ready anytime soon. And whether you use nuclear or natural gas, they require a tremendous amount of water. Very few communities have this kind of water. The GIG does. The GIG has everything we need within close proximity.”
Having the land, water and power on site gives O’Leary Ventures the opportunity “to build a park at scale for 7.5 GW,” says Palandjian, adding, “It is possible to build more than that.”
Cost savings will be significant, he adds. “Around 6 to 8 cents per kilowatt hour is the goal for electricity costs in the U.S. for AI data centers,” he says. “We can produce power at 3.5 cents Canadian in Alberta. We will be paying one-third to one-fourth of what they will be paying for power in the U.S. That is a huge competitive advantage at GIG: producing power at scale at low cost.”
If all goes according to plan, says Palandjian, “we will start lighting up data centers in Greenview in mid-2028. We do not yet know who the end-user is going to be, but we will design a hybrid data center campus that is built to 80% of the specs used by all the major hyperscalers. By and large, Microsoft, Google, Meta, SAP, Tesla and Oracle all have slightly different specs for their data centers, but there are some common threads. We will position the development to cast the widest possible net. There are not 1,000 potential clients. This is more like alien hunting in space and there are only seven aliens.”
From Site Visit to LOI
For Greenview, the project is a game-changer. Greenview is a municipal district of 9,500 residents who live in an area of 33,000 square kilometers (12,741 square miles). It takes over four hours to drive across it.
Kyle Reiling, executive director of Greenview Industrial Gateway, says the lead came in last year “when I had received notification from one of the ministers that someone was looking at a large-scale data center development. They asked if I was available to go to Calgary and participate in a meeting on a large project. I met Paul [Palandjian] there. That is when I knew this could be the next level. We already had land, feedstock, water and dedicated fiber-optic lines. Two of the largest natural gas producers are within 450 meters of the site. That Friday, I spent three hours with them. After spending the whole morning with us, the company then met with Alberta Premier Smith and other leaders.”
Kyle Reiling, Executive Director, Greenview Industrial Gateway
The company liked what they saw. “I received notification on Sunday that Paul was not going back to Dubai. Instead, Carl Agren was going to fly here to look at a master plan for 3,000 acres. This project has been very fast-moving ever since.”
Reiling adds that “they have about a year to get through all the approvals associated with the project. There is nothing comparable to this in Canada now.”
He says around 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas will be consumed daily. “That is 10% to 12% of the natural gas consumed in Alberta,” Reiling says. “Phase one of the project will be 1.4 gigawatts and will cost about $12 billion. Each subsequent gigawatt of capacity will be another $10 billion.”
Reiling says Alberta won over O’Leary because “they were absolutely blown away by the region’s support for this. Carl was impressed by the beauty of the region. We not only have natural gas and solar, but also one of the best sources of geothermal energy within 350 meters of the site.”
Workforce needs will be met by local assets, Reiling adds. “The Northwest Polytechnic educational system has the ability to work with the O’Leary group to develop curriculum.”
To access the project site, you fly into Grand Prairie, a city of 70,000 people, and then drive 42 kilometers (26 miles) south. “Workers won’t be a problem,” says Reiling. “Grand Prairie has all the amenities, a world-class hospital and a massive retail center that draw 250,000 people, plus lots of housing for full-time workers.”
Wonder Valley is part of a provincial plan to recruit $100 billion in data center investment.
Premier Smith has made this sector a key piece of her economic platform. In fact, she joined Kevin O’Leary in paying U.S. President Donald Trump a visit at Mar-a-Lago to discuss Wonder Valley and Trump’s tariffs.
Wendy Unger, government and industry liaison for the Municipal District of Greenview, says another unique aspect of Wonder Valley is that it will be completely off the grid. “It will be the biggest such project in the world; and we are working on securing a permanent water license,” she notes. “Turbines and natural gas will be used as power sources. We are sitting on the largest reserves of natural gas in Canada, and this sits on top of that reserve. Trillions of liters of gas are underground. The largest water supply in Alberta is on site. We have saved O’Leary years of engineering studies and design work.”
Two U.S. States on the Clock
Unger says Wonder Valley plans to hire 100 to 150 full-time employees per phase over seven to 10 phases. Up to 4,000 construction workers will be needed to build the campus over the next decade.
“We have a very good construction workforce in Alberta,” she says. “They will be housed in a temporary worker camp on site. Technical talent will come from all over the world when the first phase of Wonder Valley opens. Many will be trained at a technical college in Grand Prairie. If this goes through, this will be the largest project in Canadian history.”
“We will be paying one-third to one-fourth of what they will be paying for power in the U.S. That is a huge competitive advantage at GIG: producing power at scale at low cost.”
— Paul Palandjian, CEO, O’Leary Ventures
Palandjian says the campus “will have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the province. We see this as being transformative for Alberta and Canada. We want to have a minimum of two mega-projects. We think there will be a Wonder Valley in the U.S. as well. We are looking at sites in West Virginia and North Dakota now for agreements similar to the one we have in Greenview.”
Meanwhile, he says, it’s full speed ahead in Canada. A partnership with Frank McCourt of McCourt Partners has been signed to infuse additional capital into the project, Palandjian notes.
“He has a billion dollars of capital from Guggenheim. He has committed the first $100 million of capital toward the project that will go into the master plan and design of Wonder Valley over the next six months. We will complete due diligence on the geotechnical, water and power solutions and close on the land purchase in the next six to nine months. In parallel, we are assembling our team.”
Next year, he says, will bring the permitting process and approvals, followed by groundbreaking in 2027. “After that,” he says, “it will be 14 to 18 months to light up power.”
Alberta Minister of Technology & Innovation Nate Glubish says his province is far from done in this sector. “We have another large data center campus being proposed,” he tells Site Selection. “We have over 10 gigawatts of data centers and other power project proposals before us now. We are eager to work with the project proponents.”
According to the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), there are currently 12 data center projects representing 6,500 MW of demand in the queue, including four in the Calgary area with 1,155 MW of potential load.
Nate Glubish, Alberta Minister of Technology & Innovation
“Alberta’s policy is that we welcome data center investment,” says Minister Glubish. “Hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be invested. We released our AI data center strategy in December. Our intent is to be the destination of choice. We tell companies to come check out what we have to offer.” In the case of O’Leary Ventures, he says, “They came and kicked the tires and were pleased by what they found.”
The kicker, he adds, is that “we are not offering any provincial-level incentive programs because we don’t need to. Our value proposition is that we offer unlimited energy and a fast approval process. Time is money. We can give you the gift of time.”
