Microsoft is planning to build a new data center in Toronto, Canada.
WZMH Architects, submitting an application on behalf of 3288212 Nova Scotia Limited – a Microsoft-owned shell company – has filed to build a ‘communications technological facility’ on the site of a now-closed Lowe’s store between Islington Avenue and Highway 401.
The current one-story 13,172 sqm facility at 48 Lowe’s Place will be demolished, making way for a 25,869 sqm (289,450 sq ft) two-story technology building and single-story office administration & support building. Toronto City officials are yet to make a decision on the application.
The site, in the Rexdale/Etobicoke area of Toronto, currently houses a Lowe's department store, which is now closed. Previously the site was home to a brewery owned by the Labatt Brewing Co. that was built in the early 1970s and closed around 2005/6.
Microsoft currently has two cloud data centers in Canada in Toronto and Quebec City; first announced in 2015, they launched in 2016. Google Cloud has two Canadian cloud regions; one in Montreal and another in Toronto that opened last year.
Last November AWS announced plans to build a new Canadian cloud region in Calgary, Alberta, due to launch in late 2023/early 2024. The company its first Canadian cloud region – in Montreal, Québec, and known as Canada Central – in 2016, and launched the same year.
