July 2 (Reuters) - Pembina Pipeline ( PBA ) said on

Thursday it will go ahead with its planned C$4.6 billion ($3.24

billion) Greenlight Electricity Centre in Alberta, a project

that will power the development of a major data center for an

as-yet-unnamed customer.

The Calgary-based pipeline company announced a positive

final investment decision on the Greenlight project, a

932-megawatt natural gas-fired power-generation facility to be

located in Sturgeon County in central Alberta.

Pembina - which is partnering with Morgan Stanley

Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management - did not

name the customer who will build the data center, but said the

data center will be a first of its kind in Canada.

"Rapid growth in artificial intelligence and cloud computing

is driving durable global demand for data center capacity and

Alberta has positioned itself as an attractive jurisdiction for

significant investment," Pembina said in a release.

Canada currently has only five functioning data ​centers at

the so-called hyperscale level, which means they demand at least

50 megawatts of electricity capacity, equivalent to the power

needs of a small city.

Nearly 100 other hyperscale data centers are in the works in

Canada, and nearly 90% of those are planned for Alberta. The

province has been touting its massive reserves of cheap natural

gas in an effort to entice tech companies, including U.S.

hyperscalers, to build data centers there.

Pembina said it already has a long-term tolling agreement in

place with its data center customer, and expects the project to

be in service by late 2030.

The project will require approximately 150 million cubic

feet per day of natural gas, the company said, helping to create

demand for Western Canadian natural gas producers.

($1 = 1.4175 Canadian dollars)