Canada’s Oil Heartland Sees Trade War Sparking Budget Shortfall

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Canada’s Oil Heartland Sees Trade War Sparking Budget Shortfall

Alberta, Canada’s top oil-producing province, is projecting its first budget deficit after four years of surpluses as the prospect of a trade war with the US weighs on the outlook for economic growth and oil revenue. The shortfall of C$5.2 billion ($3.6 billion) in the fiscal year starting in April would be driven largely by a C$4 […]

The shortfall of C$5.2 billion ($3.6 billion) in the fiscal year starting in April would be driven largely by a C$4 billion drop in bitumen royalties and a C$1.2 billion drop in personal and corporate income taxes, according to forecasts released Thursday.

Expenses are expected to rise 3.3% to C$75.3 billion.

Alberta stands to be among the Canadian provinces hardest hit by President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs as it provides the vast majority of the roughly 4 million barrels a day of crude the US imports from its northern neighbor. While US imports of Canadian energy products are facing a 10% levy — less than half the proposed duty on other goods — a potential trade war still threatens to lower Alberta oil prices and volumes, reducing the resource revenue that accounts for about a quarter of the province’s inflows.

“While we work closely with partners to find solutions to a possible trade conflict, we will continue our work to make sure Alberta’s economy is strong — in and outside of the energy sector — so that we can manage any turbulence that comes our way,” Finance Minister Nate Horner said in a statement.

Trump’s 25% tariffs on most US imports from Canada and Mexico were set to take effect Feb. 4, then pushed back by a month after those countries’ leaders announced new border security measures. Trump said in a social media post Thursday that the levies are on track to go into place on March 4, saying drugs from the US’s North American neighbors are still entering “at very high and unacceptable levels.”

In January, US authorities seized 0.03 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border, according to figures from US Customs and Border Protection. Longer-range data on drug seizures from CBP also suggest the amount of fentanyl coming from Canada is small — about 70 pounds since October 2021, compared with 67,000 pounds at the Mexico-US border.

With the trade threat looming, Alberta’s government said it’s taking a cautious approach to economic projections for this year, including a forecast that real gross domestic product growth will decelerate to 1.8% from about 3% in 2024.

Alberta projects population growth will slow to 2.5% this year, down from a record 4.4% in 2024. The province’s population has boomed in recent years amid an influx of Canadians from Ontario and British Columbia in search of more affordable housing.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil, which has a significant effect on the price of Canadian crude exports, is projected to average $68 a barrel for the next fiscal year, down from $74 in the current fiscal cycle, the province said.

The government also said it will introduce a lower personal income bracket of 8% on Albertans’ first C$60,000 of income, saving Albertans as much as C$750 in 2025.

The government expects total borrowing requirements to rise 0.8% to C$11.4 billion next year, with further increases to C$13.9 billion in the 2026 to 2027 fiscal year and $20.8 billion in the year after that.

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Alliant Energy Picks New Board Chair

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ICYMI: Secretary Wright Powers up American Energy at CERAWeek & the Houston Rodeo

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Petronas Is Evaluating Exit From Argentina Shale Oil Venture

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Energy Bosses Shrug Off DeepSeek to Focus on Powering AI Boom

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IBM laying foundation for mainframe as ultimate AI server

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VergeIO enhances VergeFabric network virtualization offering

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Podcast: On the Frontier of Modular Edge AI Data Centers with Flexnode’s Andrew Lindsey

The modular data center industry is undergoing a seismic shift in the age of AI, and few are as deeply embedded in this transformation as Andrew Lindsey, Co-Founder and CEO of Flexnode. In a recent episode of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, Lindsey joined Editor-in-Chief Matt Vincent and Senior Editor David Chernicoff to discuss the evolution of modular data centers, the growing demand for high-density liquid-cooled solutions, and the industry factors driving this momentum. A Background Rooted in Innovation Lindsey’s career has been defined by the intersection of technology and the built environment. Prior to launching Flexnode, he worked at Alpha Corporation, a top 100 engineering and construction management firm founded by his father in 1979. His early career involved spearheading technology adoption within the firm, with a focus on high-security infrastructure for both government and private clients. Recognizing a massive opportunity in the data center space, Lindsey saw a need for an innovative approach to infrastructure deployment. “The construction industry is relatively uninnovative,” he explained, citing a McKinsey study that ranked construction as the second least-digitized industry—just above fishing and wildlife, which remains deliberately undigitized. Given the billions of square feet of data center infrastructure required in a relatively short timeframe, Lindsey set out to streamline and modernize the process. Founded four years ago, Flexnode delivers modular data centers with a fully integrated approach, handling everything from site selection to design, engineering, manufacturing, deployment, operations, and even end-of-life decommissioning. Their core mission is to provide an “easy button” for high-density computing solutions, including cloud and dedicated GPU infrastructure, allowing faster and more efficient deployment of modular data centers. The Rising Momentum for Modular Data Centers As Vincent noted, Data Center Frontier has closely tracked the increasing traction of modular infrastructure. Lindsey has been at the forefront of this

Last Energy to Deploy 30 Microreactors in Texas for Data Centers

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Each month Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Pkaza, posts some of the hottest data center career opportunities in the market. Here’s a look at some of the latest data center jobs posted on the Data Center Frontier jobs board, powered by Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting. Data Center Facility Engineer (Night Shift Available) Ashburn, VAThis position is also available in: Tacoma, WA (Nights), Days/Nights: Needham, MA and New York City, NY. This opportunity is working directly with a leading mission-critical data center developer / wholesaler / colo provider. This firm provides data center solutions custom-fit to the requirements of their client’s mission-critical operational facilities. They provide reliability of mission-critical facilities for many of the world’s largest organizations facilities supporting enterprise clients and hyperscale companies. This opportunity provides a career-growth minded role with exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Electrical Commissioning Engineer New Albany, OHThis traveling position is also available in: Somerset, NJ; Boydton, VA; Richmond, VA; Ashburn, VA; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Hampton, GA; Fayetteville, GA; Des Moines, IA; San Jose, CA; Portland, OR; St Louis, MO; Phoenix, AZ; Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL; or Toronto, ON. *** ALSO looking for a LEAD EE and ME CxA agents.*** Our client is an engineering design and commissioning company that has a national footprint and specializes in MEP critical facilities design. They provide design, commissioning, consulting and management expertise in the critical facilities space. They have a mindset to provide reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design and LEED expertise when providing these consulting services for enterprise, colocation and hyperscale companies. This career-growth minded opportunity offers exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Switchgear Field Service Technician – Critical Facilities Nationwide TravelThis position is also available in: Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Dallas,

Amid Shifting Regional Data Center Policies, Iron Mountain and DC Blox Both Expand in Virginia’s Henrico County

The dynamic landscape of data center developments in Maryland and Virginia exemplify the intricate balance between fostering technological growth and addressing community and environmental concerns. Data center developers in this region find themselves both in the crosshairs of groups worried about the environment and other groups looking to drive economic growth. In some cases, the groups are different components of the same organizations, such as local governments. For data center development, meeting the needs of these competing interests often means walking a none-too-stable tightrope. Rapid Government Action Encourages Growth In May 2024, Maryland demonstrated its commitment to attracting data center investments by enacting the Critical Infrastructure Streamlining Act. This legislation provides a clear framework for the use of emergency backup power generation, addressing previous regulatory challenges that a few months earlier had hindered projects like Aligned Data Centers’ proposed 264-megawatt campus in Frederick County, causing Aligned to pull out of the project. However, just days after the Act was signed by the governor, Aligned reiterated its plans to move forward with development in Maryland. With the Quantum Loop and the related data center development making Frederick County a focal point for a balanced approach, the industry is paying careful attention to the pace of development and the relations between developers, communities and the government. In September of 2024, Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater revealed draft legislation that would potentially restrict where in the county data centers could be built. The legislation was based on information found in the Frederick County Data Centers Workgroup’s final report. Those bills would update existing regulations and create a floating zone for Critical Digital Infrastructure and place specific requirements on siting data centers. Statewide, a cautious approach to environmental and community impacts statewide has been deemed important. In January 2025, legislators introduced SB116, a bill

Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

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John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

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2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

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OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

Launching your first AI project with a grain of RICE: Weighing reach, impact, confidence and effort to create your roadmap

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Businesses know they can’t ignore AI,

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