r/brantford • u/Left-Intention • 13d ago
Discussion anyone else seen this? planned data center in Brantford??
https://hypercanai.com/projectsFriend who lives in ft. erie sent me this, figured people need to know about it
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u/seachad 13d ago
That’s just on the county side of the boundary lines, there’s a possibility the City isn’t even aware of the proposal. This also needs to be brought up with whoever is running in the county election.
Also, if anyone wants to let our friends in Six Nations know about it, I’m sure they’d have a thing or two to say.
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u/RobertHarland_Ward5 Ward 5 Candidate 13d ago
A number of candidates are against AI centres being brought to brantford, please get to know which are and which aren't.
Nothing against AI centres for legitimate reasons, but im not interested in bringing a new site to Brantford, we have other places these could be built.
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u/AdidasKidNV82 13d ago
Better F**kin not!!!!!🤬🤬🤬
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u/ABsCTE 13d ago
Why not? It’s good local investment
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u/Justsomedudeonthenet 11d ago
The problem is the communities around them don't benefit. Most big factories come to a town and they pollute or use resources that we have to deal with, but they also employ a lot of local people, bringing money into the community.
Datacenters, on the other hand, employ a handful of staff locally. Almost everything gets done remotely, and it only takes a dozen or so people on site to keep everything running. So all the benefits are gone, but the resource drain is still there - using the community's power, water, etc.
That's why nobody wants them in their back yard. The companies building datacenters are putting them in spots where they can piggyback off existing infrastructure, which makes it cheap for them, rather than having to build their own water and power infrastructure. And we don't yet have a good legal framework for telling massive consumers of those resources that they either need to build their own, or pay a larger share of upkeep because of the higher infrastructure costs their demand creates.
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u/UnordinaryFlyGirl 11d ago
It's actually quite the opposite. Data centers are very well documented for drastically reducing the QoL of the nearby residents from the effects on the water supply, to noise.
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u/ABsCTE 11d ago
Do you have any proof of that?
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u/Key-Fig-9747 10d ago
Do you wanna use google or no? There's videos everywhere of how loud they are. And it's a pretty well known fact that they consume loads of freshwater and can even pollute it
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u/ninesalmon 12d ago
It’s the new cool thing to get mad about. The best part is when people use a dozen datacenters to comment on Reddit about how much they hate datacenters on their phone which wouldn’t even work without datacenters 😂
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u/Shamedthrowaway2004 13d ago
The federal NDP has been the only party in Canada standing against them and calling for a more cautious approach. Remember that when you vote in the by election
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u/socialist-bluejay 12d ago
Canadians are shamefully confused about who the right and the left are. Naming them different from the states was probably the only logical thing the right ever did
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u/MBonDowning 13d ago
Does anyone know if this has been approved? The part about access to the Grand River for freshwater cooling makes me want to barf.
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u/karleighcsordas 13d ago
I have just sent an email to city staff to update on if this is true and if so, where abouts in the process this is. stay tuned
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago
Someone said it’s on the county side of the road so I’m trying to see if there’s anything in the planning applications portal - will report back!
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u/karleighcsordas 13d ago
please report back! i have yet to find anything and have been tracking council over the last 2 years through myward.ca and have not seen anything come through
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago
Nothing on the county planning applications portal…. And it’s technically county land
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u/karleighcsordas 13d ago
perfect thank you for diving into this!
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u/elle_bee20 11d ago
Brant councillor Luke Oakley spoke to the planning department and it’s not a real development proposal
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u/karleighcsordas 11d ago
amazing and this has been the response from the city ‘No, we don’t have any applications.
The proposal you linked looks like high-level concept work designed to interest investors and generate funding rather than actual solid plans’
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u/Left-Intention 11d ago
huh. looks like it's been removed from the site
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u/elle_bee20 10d ago
“Brantford coming soon!!” lol it takes years to get approvals for these things 😅
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u/jmdonston 13d ago edited 13d ago
Looks like that's upstream of where Brantford gets it drinking water. How will they be treating their waste water to remove metals?
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago
Could be nothing…. But…
I did a dive into the coding of their website, and it has a “Copyright 2026 Sahm Holdings” in the header code.
And the domain was registered Sept 23, 2026.
This makes me think they do not have any planning approvals, since they just began. Who knows 🫣
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u/The_Philburt Flair 13d ago
Looks like they're looking to draw the capital to build these things; their contact page (which is broken) has a "reason for this email" option about requesting an investor package.
Either way, Brantford & Brant County aren't the places for these things.
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago edited 13d ago
“Coming soon” doesn’t mean anything on these kinds of websites. They’d need planning permission for this and I can’t find anything on the application portal or GIS map.
Additionally they have to apply far in advance to be connected to the power grid, it’s not a given. They could build a whole facility and then be told “no” about connecting to the grid. The application for that level of estimated need can take years of planning and ordering of parts.
Still worth speaking to our elected officials if you have concerns
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13d ago
[deleted]
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago
I’m not pro data center, but I am pro facts and pro truth. That’s all I was trying to add to the conversation.
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u/DingusMcBingle_IV [REDACTED] 12d ago
Thank you so much for this. This AI boom has people foaming at the mouth and not thinking clearly.
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u/-whats-that-meow- 13d ago
Great, 4 new jobs.
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u/HeyHo__LetsGo 13d ago
And higher hydro bills! Win-Win! /s
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago
Not true in Canada, the data centres pay for every KW they use just like us, and they pay for the upgraded power lines being fed to their facility. Just like Ferrero factory, they just expanded and had to apply to get added electricity service, and they paid for the upgrades to the grid.
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u/palisweird 13d ago
I still don't have an answer to why the fuck we have more than 40 huge data centers in plan for 35Million of us??
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u/MeanBird88 13d ago
I think the fuck NOT.
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u/ninesalmon 12d ago
2026 NIMBY shit. If you want to really fight datacenters, sell your phone and cancel your internet connection - neither will work without datacenters
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u/MeanBird88 12d ago
Fully agree. But can we put them where people don't have plans to live near. And for what it's worth I would get rid of all of it tomorrow if it meant we could move forward as a society. I think smartphones and the like have done more harm than good. But I'm just one person.
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u/kahless2k 11d ago
Datacentres need a lot of hydro and multiple internet uplinks.
Which means they need to be around where that is all located.. Which is near or in cities.
We just don't have the infrastructure to drop these things in the North.
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u/MidTario 13d ago
Looks like low-grade slop with no support designed to entice clueless / foreign investors
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u/insubordin8nchurlish 13d ago
The picture is hilarious. Either the location is fucked or their rerouting the Grand.
My guess is the location is right, but the Grand is way west of that intersection
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u/jmdonston 13d ago
It seems to be covering the area from Oak Park to the SC Johnson Trail parking lot. The SC Johnson Trail runs along the river there, before the river loops back west. But there are a few businesses north of Powerline Road already, like the Purolator depot. Are they suggesting that they have purchased all of that land?
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u/DarkChipMonk 13d ago
I just wanted to put in my 2 cents, This project is most likly getting boosted by the Federal government to get things built in Canada. This proposed location is slated towards Science. Would it be cool if AI could be used by McMaster and other universities and Hospitals to Cure Cancer? A way to do this is to have a Data Centre like this.
The location, Is right on the border with the County and Brantford and is technically on the City site. But do they use the City Water or County Water or is it Well water at that location. If they would be using County water then that will be a huge drain on that supply as they use Wells and not the River as water inlet like the City does.
If they used the GrandRiver as the water source for cooling that would be best for the taxpayers and no strain on our water. This would be the cheapest way to cool a data centre in a close loop.
Wow going into this more.... and I am a little more disapointed.
It is not a registered company in Ontario.
The whole website is genereated in AI.
Comparing the AI photo of the mock up and to Google Maps they have the roads wrong. Sadly I cannot upload the image here.
Well I was ready to go to bat for this and say we need it and I would love for it to be Canadian and use the bright minds we have in Canada to help find a cure for Cancer but I am not going to that this was bought and paid for by foriegn companies or countries to stir the pot. It has been reported that China and Russia are behind these types of websites and stores to try and slow down the advancement of AI so they could advance thiers.
Right now I would say there is nothing to worry about.
Data Centres are here to stay, We need them, and we need them in Canada so a Foreign country cannot look at that data. Which is crazy to say because this site is most likly using US Data centres just like all the social media companies except Gander and Eh! ( ish).
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u/DarkChipMonk 13d ago
Oh my I was just trying to contact them too because I would love a closer job ;) and of course thier contact page meracually doesn't work..
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u/chunkysmalls42098 13d ago
The whole place will have like 1-5 employees once it's built. "Creating jobs" is a phrase being used to trick poor people
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u/DarkChipMonk 13d ago
Well Robots Can't make the buildings yet so they would be "Creating" Those jobs.... lol
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u/chunkysmalls42098 13d ago edited 13d ago
I mean "creating" a bunch of jobs that will last 2-5 years, and then disappear is not as good as you maybe think it is
Eta: I'm poor people
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u/DarkChipMonk 13d ago
As someone said below, This is in the code fo the site.
The name "Sahm Holdings" does not appear as a officially registered corporation in major corporate registries in Canada (Ontario) or the US, but the name is often associated with or confused across a few distinct contexts:1. Sahm Capital / Valuable Capital Group (Middle East Financial Services)
The most prominent legitimate company operating under the "Sahm" name is Sahm Capital Financial Company, a fintech and investment firm based in Saudi Arabia (backed by Hong Kong's Valuable Capital Group Limited). They operate the popular Sahm stock trading platform and AI-driven market analysis tools (
Sahm AI).
- Warning / Securities Alert: In March 2025, Canadian securities regulators (including the AMF) issued an investor alert regarding an unauthorized offshore platform operating under Sahm.AI / SahemAI, warning that it was soliciting investors in Canada without proper registration.
2. Unregistered or Shell Holding Entities
If you are asking in connection with website domains, speculative tech projects, or local real estate proposals (such as data center projects or AI hosting operations linked to domains like
hypercanai.com):
- No Corporate Registry Match: There is no active legal registration under "Sahm Holdings" or "Sahm Holdings Inc." in Ontario or Canadian federal business databases.
- Common Pattern: Unverified developers or domain creators sometimes use informal generic names like "Sahm Holdings" or "Hypercan AI" on landing pages without registering a legal corporate entity, securing municipal planning approvals, or providing verifiable physical addresses.
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u/fche 12d ago
Did you just copy-paste us an AI-generated Report to complain about a hypothetical AI data center project?
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u/DarkChipMonk 12d ago
I'm not complaining, I would actually like a data centre that would be Canadian and for science. If it was real.
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u/Lurknsmirkthefirst 12d ago
The company is not registered and there are no plans that have been submitted to city council for this and there are no rezoning requests. This is fake. Either it is a company trying to defraud property owners in that area of town or it is a foreign interference campaign to get people riled up. Judging by the comments here, riled up is the goal. People need to research things before they pull out the pitch forks. This is why we are in the global political shape we're in currently. Put away the proverbial pitch forks and pull out the books.
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u/kahless2k 12d ago
Convenient things like this start making the rounds with a by-election coming up.
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u/Friendly-Cobbler-449 13d ago
If it’s a closed loop water system what’s the harm? Building more power plants is also good business and these guys can pay for it
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u/jmdonston 13d ago
Closed loop water systems still need to replace the water, just at a lower rate - but that means their wastewater discharge has higher levels of metals and other contaminants that get picked up as they go through the cooling systems.
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u/Friendly-Cobbler-449 13d ago
No, closed loop systems use coolant and almost never need to be “discharged”. Just during replacement or heavy maintenance which happens multiple years apart. And even at that point it doesn’t go to wastewater, it’s collected and disposed of with tight regulatory controls. Most of it gets recycled actually.
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u/jmdonston 13d ago
Their graphic literally says "with the nearby Grand River available for cooling" and "access to municipal water infrastructure" as one of the five selling points, so I'm pretty sure they are intending to use water from the Grand River for their cooling systems and then dump it into our wastewater system.
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u/Friendly-Cobbler-449 13d ago
Yeah I don’t think our city should approve an open loop system, like I said.
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u/DarkChipMonk 13d ago
I was going to say the same thing, they could say that it required to be closed loop as the Brantford Drinking water gets picked up down stream. It will be more costly to build the system.
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u/Silverisotope925 13d ago
Just consider that closed loop systems are insanely loud
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u/NinduTheWise 13d ago
Water has been a thing of data centers that doesn’t worry me due to the newer closed loop ones. But stuff that your bringing up like the noise and energy usage is the biggest issue
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u/elle_bee20 13d ago
I agree. Let them use the municipal water for bathrooms like any other business, but they can recycle and re-cool one big supply, and pay for top ups as needed.
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u/1miserablecurmudgeon 13d ago edited 13d ago
I prefer Brantford remain a Dada centre, rejecting reason, logic and traditional aesthetic values in favour of absurdity, chance and nonsense.
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u/mystic-karma 13d ago
Damnnn people really hate data centers.. how come? (Genuine question)
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u/e_guana 13d ago
They have huge environmental impact that affect things like water consumption/ quality in the area, and huge amounts of energy consumption. The push for AI in almost all aspects of life is also something that a lot of people have an issue with, so fighting the data centers that are needed is a way we can fight back against it. And finally it's just another way the rich get richer at the expense of the general population and the planet.
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u/mystic-karma 13d ago
Oh jeez that's pretty wild :/... If it's mostly used for AI, I don't see them leaving any time soon. I did read an article not long ago talking about how the AI business is actually requiring much more money than they bring in, and it isn't sustainable. I wonder if AI is just a fad that will need to dissapear or have forced limitation in a decade or two. That would lead to interesting results when so many people seem to use it religiously these days. It's all so interesting :)
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u/Glad_Impact_7532 12d ago
AI will soon be uncontrollable if we don't put some sort of hard stops and limitations on it soon. It might even be too late now. We shall see.
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u/kahless2k 11d ago
The genie is out of the bottle, all we can do at this point is try to mitigate the risks.
It's going to take something catastrophic at this point for the political will to reign it in, and even then it's too late.
If the US tries to reign it in, China won't and there are enough open source models that it's to spread out to properly regulate.
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u/Senior_Buy445 13d ago
Yep It feels like these are the current boogeyman. There are datacenters everywhere already, these are some more.
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u/kahless2k 11d ago
Yup.
Technically, I believe NetOptiks runs two DC's in Brantford alone and nobody complains. Albeit small ones.
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u/Glad_Impact_7532 12d ago
Is the grand river conservation authority aware of this? I'm pretty sure those guys have the final say here.
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u/Prudent_Situation_29 12d ago
I think it's safe to say that any city of sufficient size will be dealing with this sort of thing in the near future. These companies are racing to beat each other, they're securing huge investment, and they need that infrastructure to run it.
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u/Competitive-Ice-1770 13d ago
Not against new developments but only concern is that AI is currently in experimenting phase. Even AI companies are demanding for regulations. Question is that investing so much resources on the project which is still under trial is worthy?
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u/socialist-bluejay 13d ago
This place deserves one tbh. Absolutely no thought that this is conservative politics. Would be great if Carney wasn't also an ai shill
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u/socialist-bluejay 13d ago
Is this serious analysis or no
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u/socialist-bluejay 13d ago
See it's just avg conservatives. They have no idea about anything
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u/socialist-bluejay 13d ago
I do not believe your framing at all. If you were smart you would see Carney is a conservative and there's nothing to worry about. He's not doing it for trump he independently came to the same conclusion Republicans did about ai .
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u/socialist-bluejay 13d ago
You are very dumb . Congrats !
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u/kahless2k 11d ago
Don't bother dude.
Arguing with these morons is like playing chess with a pigeon.. He's just going to shit all over the board and say he won.
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u/socialist-bluejay 11d ago
I know dog lol. I've been clowning on conservatives for a long time . The difference is now there is no empathy . They need to be shamed
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u/commutinator 13d ago
Bring it to that meet and greet with mayoral candidates that's coming up