The B.C. government is exploring the possibility of providing AI data-centre development incentives through its innovation agency.

“There’s certainly an appetite right now to build data centres around the world, here in B.C. and across the country,” Diana Gibson, the province’s minister of jobs, economic development and innovation minister.

“And, I think that the conversation that we’re having with Innovate BC around how we do that strategically is really important, and we are developing an AI policy, [including] in that the data-centre management as well.

“So we’ll be coming out with a strategy.”

Gibson made her comments in response to questions from Connect during an unrelated news conference at the recent 2025 Web Summit technology conference in Vancouver.

Innovate BC is a provincial Crown Corporation that supports company growth and promotes economic development through technology and innovation.

Peter Cowan, Innovate BC’s chief executive, said AI has become known as “the new oil,” during the same news conference, also responding to questions from Connect.

“It’s a new opportunity for companies, provinces [and] sovereign data farms to be able to own their own data and be able to capitalize and market that,” said Cowan. “So, I think there’s amazing opportunity inside British Columbia to leverage the data that we’re all creating through artificial intelligence, and not just the data side, but also the infrastructure that goes with that, whether that’s building data farms or larger equipment.”

Data sovereignty and ownership of the data, which is an intellectual property, will also be “a really critical factor to our future success,” he added.

During the recent Canada Connect in Toronto, Jonathan Turnbull, managing director and head of Canada for Harrison Street, said it is not yet clear who will become significant owners in the country’s rapidly expanding data-centre real estate market. Cowan said he does not have a perspective on the future-ownership question, either. But the “value” of data-centre growth is in the ownership of the actual data.

“They’ve got value in the data that’s being stored in these centres,” he said. “They own the intellectual property surrounding it.

“We can own the real estate. That’s great, but we also need to think about owning the intangible asset that goes in tandem with the real asset.”

Pictured: Cologix AI data centre in downtown Vancouver.

Photo: Datacentres.com