Description
The evolution of the Montréal data centre market is no longer defined solely by hyperscale cloud. Montréal was the initial foothold for hyperscale public cloud in Canada and its early builds propelled the market into prominence. The market has since diversified, with new demand coming from AI, HPC and enterprise users, building alongside continued hyperscale expansion. The early advantages Montréal saw around green energy availability, low power costs and a favourable climate remain foundational, but the story today is just as much about shifting regulatory dynamics and emerging AI workloads and use cases.
Regulatory developments are now the main constraint on new supply. Québec has adopted a more cautious stance toward data centres as political electrification priorities shift toward EVs, battery manufacturing and mining. Bill 69, passed in 2024, requires government approval for any new grid connection over 5MW. As of mid-2025, no data centre projects have been approved under the new framework. While existing agreements made prior to December 2022 are being honoured, the pause on new allocations has stalled construction across the region, pushing vacancy to historic lows and forcing projects farther from the island as developers seek power and land outside constrained areas.
At the same time, demand for capacity remains strong. Montréal continues to benefit from its appeal to AI, gaming, HPC and rendering workloads. It now has Canada’s highest average rack density, and new deployments from GPU cloud providers like Consensus Core and Cerebras Cloud are adding to a growing AI ecosystem. Meanwhile, the self-build trend continues to evolve. AWS, Google and Microsoft are all building or planning their own infrastructure in Québec, and while this reduces the total addressable market for colocation providers, it also underscores the province’s continued strategic importance for hyperscale.
The market is maturing but still dynamic. With no new construction likely to come online in the short-term, pricing will tighten and competitive differentiation will hinge on power access and delivery timelines. Still, the fundamentals remain strong. In 2025, the Montréal market will generate CAD$859.7m in colocation revenue and grow at a five-year CAGR of 16%. This report is an excellent resource for any service provider, investor or enterprise end user looking to understand and project the data centre market in Montréal or find a service provider.
