Ontario has two local pauses on new data centers and a provincial rulebook on the way. Mississauga's council voted unanimously on September 16, 2026 to freeze data centers drawing more than 10 megawatts of power for one year, following Oakville, which passed the province's first moratorium in August. The province's draft Data Centre Playbook closed for comment on September 12; the final version is expected this fall.
Mississauga's vote leaves in limbo a 40-megawatt Prologis project in Meadowvale Business Park, just south of Highway 401 and about a kilometer from the nearest homes. Residents raised its energy use, backup generators and floodplain location. "We've heard your voice loud and clear," said Councilor Martin Reid, who sponsored the pause; he called the provincial playbook encouraging but toothless: "There's no recourse." Prologis said it was disappointed and considering its next steps. Hamilton and Burlington ordered planning studies instead of pauses.
Read more
Premier Doug Ford, who has criticized moratoriums, says new data centers will pay all their own power costs and a higher rate than other big industrial users, and must show local benefits and meet water and noise standards. Under a 2025 law, the province now decides which large projects get a grid connection; applications could top 10,000 megawatts, about 40% of Ontario's recent peak demand. In Armour Township, Almaguin Data dropped a proposed AI data center in 2026 after a petition with more than 1,000 signatures.
Around Toronto, STACK runs a campus in Scarborough planned for 56 megawatts, CoreWeave runs an AI data center, due to open in August 2025, in a former BlackBerry building in Cambridge, and Microsoft has been preparing a site in Markham since May 2024, with building construction expected to begin in late 2026.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
Ontario11
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STACK Toronto (TOR01)Scarborough | STACK Infrastructure | 56 MW | ||
| Digital Realty 371 Gough (Markham)Exact site not confirmed | Digital Realty | 5.4 MW | Source off site ↗ | |
| Almaguin Data Inc. · Armour TownshipArmour TownshipExact site not confirmed | Almaguin Data Inc. | Withdrawn | 2 MW | Source off site ↗ |
| Compass Toronto EtobicokeEtobicoke | Compass Datacenters | Not reported | ||
| Compass Toronto YYZ2Toronto | Compass Datacenters | Not reported | Not reported | Source off site ↗ |
| CoreWeave Cambridge OntarioCambridge | CoreWeave | Not reported | ||
| Digital Realty 151 Front (Toronto)Toronto | Digital Realty | Not reported | Source off site ↗ | |
| Digital Realty TOR1 (Vaughan)Vaughan | Digital Realty | Not reported | ||
| Equinix Toronto Downtown Hub (TR1/TR2/TR4/TR5) | Equinix | Not reported | Source off site ↗ | |
| Microsoft YTO14 (Markham)Markham | Microsoft | Under construction | Not reported | |
| Oracle TorontoToronto | Oracle | Not reported |
Where this comes from
The reporting above was written from these. Open one and check it yourself.
Where people here have won
Projects stopped by a vote, pulled by their developer, or blocked in court.
| Place | What happened | Date | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armour TownshipAlmaguin Data Inc. | Withdrawn by the developer Developer dropped the project after a petition of 1,000+ residents and required impact studies. | Jun 1, 2026 | 2 MW (up to 10 MW), 6.8 acres | Story off site ↗ |
Moratoriums and bans in effect
Places in Ontario that have paused or banned new data centers.
| Place | Type | Started | Ends | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OakvilleTown or city | Moratorium | Aug 11, 2026 | Aug 11, 2027 | Record off site ↗ |
Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.