Kevin O'Leary – Better known as “Mr. Wonderful “by ABC's” Shark Tank ” – made a surprise appearance at the Data Center World 2025 in Washington, DC What does a venture capital do during a major computer event? He builds the largest AI factories in the world, and he is ready to talk about it.
The project, called Wonder Valley, is a huge Data Center on AI under construction in the Municipal District of Alberta in GreenView in Canada. Considered for the workloads of the AI, the installation will extend over 6,000 acres and boast of 7.5 gigawatts of electrical capacity. The initial phase of 1.5 GW should end within the 2027-2028 period at a cost of $ 2 billion; The rest will be gradually added in the coming years.
“The data centers are today's gold rush,” O'Leary said during his speech. “The AI is in great demand, and the strongest market is in companies with 5 to 500 employees.”
Go around long delays in regulatory and interconnection of the grid
O'Leary explained how difficult it can be to build and feed a new data center.
He said the regulatory environment is difficult; There are many permits and approval obstacles to overcome. Public services prefer to take half a decennia or more to provide energy to new customers. He gave an example of a data center asking for 250 MW now and 250 MW more in two years. The answer: 25 MW was all they could get – but not for three more years.
“If you want to attract investors, you need to get an operational project within 24 months,” said O'Leary. “We had to understand how to succeed when there was no power available on the network.”
Solution: find sources of failed power, in particular large amounts of natural gas which may not have easy access to the market. In this order, he found the best sources: Alberta, Northern Dakota, Virginie-Western and Virginia.
“Alberta, Canada, is the mother charge in North America with about 10 times the natural gas of all the others,” he said.
Creation of a data center with sustainability and citizens in mind
Wonder Valley is important on sustainability and community value. In addition to being the largest data center in the world, the campus will be surrounded by nature trails and wild areas. It can work entirely outside the network, but the owners plan to provide energy to the local community.
The region has an abundance of everything required: land, natural gas, fibers, people, infrastructure, local polytechnic, hospitals, etc.
“The capital cost of an AI data center is so high that you have to build big,” said O'Leary. “We are looking for other sites with characteristics similar to Alberta and where the government is eager to help.”
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The celebrity “Shark Tank” complained to the global public in the data center about the bad work of sale that industry has made in recent years. The new data center projects frequently cause intense local antagonism; He recommended a change of approach.
Instead of taking electricity from an already constrained network and improving electricity rates in a community, access a plan that includes adding power to the area – and having enough power available to give the inhabitants so that their electricity rates do not increase.
“Arrive in town to build more energy for them at low cost, to provide many construction jobs to the inhabitants, to set up training of technicians who will manage installation, to eliminate the flary of natural gas to reduce emissions and to bring back tax revenue by buying stranded natural gas assets,” said O'Leary. “Everything comes from the availability of energy in abundance.
