FingerMotion thinks the fastest route to new data-centre capacity in Alberta may be to bypass the provincial power grid altogether.

The technology company has signed a binding agreement to acquire land rights and pursue permitting for a 9.9-MW data-centre and power site in the County of Newell, about 185 kilometres southeast of Calgary.

The property sits beside an operating third-party natural gas facility capable of delivering fuel to the site. FingerMotion would use that supply to build its own 9.9-MW generating plant, producing electricity on site rather than connecting to Alberta’s grid.

The project has not yet received regulatory approval. FingerMotion plans to seek permits through the Alberta Utilities Commission and says the site could be fully permitted within 120 days after work begins.

FingerMotion says it plans to hold the property as permitted powered land until it secures a customer under a take-or-pay agreement. It would then install the gas connection and generating equipment, followed by modular data halls built to the customer’s requirements.

Other developers are testing the same off-grid model in Alberta. Bitdeer broke ground this year on a 19-acre site near Fox Creek pairing about 100 MW of computing capacity with its own 101-MW natural gas plant. But in Olds, about 90 kilometres north of Calgary, the Alberta Utilities Commission rejected a natural gas plant proposed for Synapse’s off-grid data-centre development, saying it was too close to the community.

FingerMotion ultimately plans to assemble several separately permitted 9.9-MW properties in the area under its proposed Brooks Campus Zone.