Now
1. Brazil Puts Algorithmic Reach on a Six-Hour Clock 180,000Japanese officials being moved onto the Digital Agency’s agent tooling 2. Europe's Rules Arrive on 2 December, Its Enforcers This Week $0.47what a US federal agency pays for Gemini for Government per year, until 15 November 3. Pennsylvania Gives Advertisers Eight Weeks $3,000Pennsylvania’s maximum civil fine under Act 99, from 21 December 4. The FCC's Robocall Waiver Is Still Open 6 hourshow often Meta and X must report reach to Brazil’s electoral court 5. Washington Renames AI in Its Own Paperwork £456mUK AI security, procurement and capability commitments, to be confirmed at the Budget 6. The Sponsor Lists Are the News in New York 2 Decemberwhen the EU nudification ban and the marking duty become enforceable 7. Pakistan Announces a Model It Has Not Tendered 14MWHumain’s Nvidia Blackwell Phase 1, from Q4 2026 8. South Africa Has 700 Complaints and No Court Case 700disinformation complaints logged by South Africa’s Electoral Commission 9. Morocco Gives AI a Minister 23AI technologies China proposes to add to its export-control catalogue 10. Australia's Data Centres Wait on Poles and Councils R$500,000daily fine behind the TSE’s order that Meta treat both run-off candidates alike The Agentic Civil Service Arrives, Rulebook Attached 72 hoursincident notice under GSA clause 552.239-7001, in new GSA AI contracts Explain the Algorithm: Brazil Sets a Six-Hour Clock 8US states that sued OpenAI under consumer and privacy law on 14 October 700 Complaints, Four Platform Partners, No Court Case 10,000AI compute units in C-DAC’s sovereign GPU empanelment Gulf AI: One Institution, Three Memoranda, One Number 6staff at Poland’s new AI regulator, KRiBSI, as complaints open on 28 October Pennsylvania Makes Advertisers Confess Their AI 0.64face-match threshold in the Home Office’s live facial recognition policy Ottawa Says Data-Centre Power Is Not Its Problem 134data-centre grid policies the IEA counted across more than 34 jurisdictions Peru Names an AI Officer in Every Ministry 27 OctIsrael votes under its first deepfake-disclosure law Britain Prices Its AI Security State 54risks listed in China’s AI Safety Governance Framework 3.0, up from 30 €30bn+EU call for up to seven AI gigafactories 554deepfakes logged in Brazil’s first round; only 371 labelled 30+AI firms sent the first AI Act information requests 164AI-made ads in the US midterms, by one count 42signatories to Canada’s voluntary data-centre principles 174MWCape Town data centre now under appeal 83 dayswait reported under Medicare’s AI pilot, against a 72-hour standard 20home-grown foundation models backed by the IndiaAI Mission 2%of Turkish public investment budgets earmarked for AI
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Ottawa Says Data-Centre Power Is Not Its Problem

Canada's AI minister told senators on 22 October that regulating data-centre electricity is a provincial matter, days after announcing C$500m more for AI adoption. A dated map of who actually decides what, from Ottawa to Regina to Halifax.

The Machine State
A stone neoclassical building with a tall colonnade across its front, seen from above beside a canal in central Ottawa.

The Senate of Canada Building at 2 Rideau Street in Ottawa, where the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology sits. Illustrative: the committee heard Canada’s AI minister disclaim federal responsibility for data-centre power on 22 October 2026.

Photo: Hayden Soloviev, CC BY 4.0 · source

On 22 October 2026, Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon, told the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, which listed him as the witness for its AI study that morning, that the electricity data centres consume is not his government’s file, Global News reported. “The federal government is not responsible for power,” he said; power regulation, he added, is the purview of provincial regulators, so federal obligations cannot be attached to it. In the same appearance he said Ottawa has received proposals for more than 160 data centres — large ones needing about 100MW per building — has memoranda of understanding with about four companies so far, and that doubling Canada’s grid capacity is “absolutely critical” to the national AI strategy. The same report notes that Ottawa does class electricity grids as critical infrastructure, which gives Public Safety Canada a risk-management role. But a minister holding 160 proposals was disclaiming authority over the single input every one of them needs.

What Ottawa Is Buying While It Declines the Power File

Nine days earlier, in London, Ontario, Solomon had announced the Southern Ontario tranche of an expanded Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative: an additional C$500m over five years, bringing total federal funding to C$700m. On 22 October itself, Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience, announced the Prairie-provinces tranche in Edmonton, delivered through Prairies Economic Development Canada; that release puts the original initiative, launched in 2024, at C$200m over five years. The initiative’s programme page sets out three pillars — AI adoption, commercialisation and scale-up, and ecosystem enablement — and lists the seven regional development agencies that deliver them. Ottawa is doing standards diplomacy too: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada says a Canada–United Kingdom joint statement of 13 October renewed AI security cooperation between the two countries’ AI institutes, covering information sharing, technical collaboration and international AI security standards.

Who Actually Decides What, and Since When

DecisionWho takes itInstrumentDated
Electricity rates, grid connection, siting and land useProvincial energy regulators and municipalitiesProvincial energy statutes; municipal planning bylawsStanding authority; Solomon restated it 22 Oct 2026
National baseline for responsible developmentOttawa (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada)Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, five principles, 23 signatories, not bindingLaunched 3 Sep 2026
Federal money for AI adoption and commercialisationOttawa, through Canada’s regional development agenciesRegional Artificial Intelligence Initiative, C$700m totalExpanded 13 Oct 2026 (Southern Ontario) and 22 Oct 2026 (Prairies)
Which data-centre projects Saskatchewan prioritisesCrown Investments Corporation with the Ministry of Trade and Export DevelopmentData Centre Framework, six principles including Bring Your Own PowerReleased 27 Aug 2026; applied to Bell expansion 14 Sep 2026
Nova Scotia ratepayer and water protectionNot yet decided; the only bill located is an opposition oneData Centre Water and Ratepayer Protection ActReported tabled 16 Sep 2026 (Your Halifax Now)
International AI security standards cooperationOttawa with partner governmentsCanada–UK joint statement13 Oct 2026

Why Saskatchewan Has a Framework and Nova Scotia an Opposition Bill

Solomon also told senators, Global News reported, that provinces including Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia are creating their own data-centre laws. Neither instrument is quite a law. Saskatchewan’s is policy: the province released its Data Centre Framework on 27 August 2026, setting six principles — Canadian ownership, data and AI sovereignty, industry experience, Saskatchewan jobs and partnerships, self-supplied power and a centralised provincial intake — and said more than 30 applications were already in the queue. Its hardest edge is power: new proponents must supply their own generation, so that projects do not press on the provincial system or displace interprovincial export capacity. When Saskatchewan approved Bell Canada’s expansion on 14 September it listed the same six in short form — the fifth “Bring Your Own Power” — named the intake point as Crown Investments Corporation with the Ministry of Trade and Export Development, and set the split: 300MW retained from the provincial grid, up to 900MW supplied by the company.

In Nova Scotia, the only data-centre bill this magazine could locate is not the government’s. Your Halifax Now reported on 16 September 2026, and The Laker four days later, that the province’s Liberal leader, Iain Rankin, was tabling the Data Centre Water and Ratepayer Protection Act, which would set out an approval process, a cost-recovery agreement, full payment by companies of electricity and infrastructure-upgrade costs, and either water conservation or a mitigation charge. That is an opposition bill, and its text could not be opened on the legislature’s website.

What a Company or a Municipality Is Actually Holding

Ottawa’s contribution to the siting question is a list. Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, launched on 3 September 2026 with 23 signatories, run to five: lasting benefits for host communities, no shifting of electricity costs onto Canadians, minimal water use and environmental impact, openness about local impacts, and strategic value to Canada. The launch release calls them a nationally recognised baseline, intended to complement the provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous regulatory processes already in place — which is to say they grant nothing and refuse nothing. A proponent still needs a provincial rate and connection decision and a municipal land-use decision. The federal layer adds money, a signature and a reputational undertaking. That is the pattern AI & GPP identified when Canada’s data-centre rush outpaced Ottawa’s rulebook, and the same structure as Carney’s AI council, where the advice sits at the centre and the power sits in the departments. Sub-national governments that want data-centre load to pay its own way are the ones writing binding instruments, as Tasmania did with its community-fund rules.

Two dates to watch. A Canada–European Union Summit falls in Montréal on 29 and 30 October 2026, flagged in the same federal release. And either province may convert talk of legislation into a government bill. The Senate committee has its own order of reference on the impact of artificial intelligence in Canada, adopted on 2 October 2025, with a final report due no later than 31 December 2026 — which leaves Ottawa until the end of the year to be asked the jurisdiction question again, in writing.

Sources

  1. Ottawa ‘not responsible’ for regulating AI data centre power use: minister — Global News, 22 October 2026
  2. Government of Canada expands support for artificial intelligence adoption and commercialization in Southern Ontario — Government of Canada (FedDev Ontario), 13 October 2026
  3. Government of Canada expands support for artificial intelligence adoption and commercialization in the Prairie provinces — Government of Canada, via Cision Newswire, 22 October 2026
  4. Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative — Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, page last modified 13 October 2026
  5. Minister Solomon concludes successful visit to the United Kingdom and Ireland to advance Canada’s global AI leadership — Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 15 October 2026
  6. Government of Canada launches Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles — Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 3 September 2026
  7. Saskatchewan Prioritizes Canadian Ownership and Sovereignty in New Data Centre Framework — Government of Saskatchewan, 27 August 2026
  8. Single Largest Private Sector Capital Investment in History of Canada Through Bell AI’s Saskatchewan Expansion — Government of Saskatchewan, 14 September 2026
  9. Liberals table new bill to tackle data centre costs — Your Halifax Now, 16 September 2026
  10. Matters related to the impact of artificial intelligence in Canada — Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, Senate of Canada, order of reference adopted 2 October 2025
  11. Meeting No. 53, Notice of Meeting, 22 October 2026 — Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, Senate of Canada, 22 October 2026
  12. Liberal bill would protect ratepayers from future AI data centre costs — The Laker, 20 September 2026

AI & GPP reports on how artificial intelligence and automation are changing the way governments decide, regulate and campaign. Corrections and tips: contact the editors.

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