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3 Canadian Stocks That Could Benefit as Data Centres Spread Across North America

The data-centre boom could reward Canadian “picks-and-shovels” businesses that finance, advise, and support the physical buildout.

Amy Legate-Wolfe

Author Bio Amy became interested in investing in 2018 after having her first daughter. After receiving a masters degree in journalism from Western University, she became frustrated that the finance industry remained a confusing place for Canadians like her: new parents, millennials, and other young people who needed to understand their finances. Now, Amy focuses on tech companies and renewable energy for growth opportunities, coupling that with long-term investing strategies and equities. She also provides investors with a daily newsletter, Canada Stock Digest, for daily market updates. Her work can also be found at Canada's National Observer, where she writes on the business side of climate action. Before joining Motley Fool Canada, Amy wrote for major news organizations including HuffPost, CTVNews.ca, and CBC. When she’s not researching investing strategies, Amy’s time is pretty much monopolized by her two wild daughters, but in what little spare time she has she loves to do yoga, go on walks with her dog, and travel with her husband. Social Media Follow Amy on LinkedIn and Canada Stock Digest. Favorite Investment Quote “October: This is one of the particularly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.” – Mark Twain

Published June 30, 4:30 pm EDT

Key Points

The data centre boom is starting to look less like a tech story and more like a North American land, power, capital, and infrastructure story.

The biggest winners may not all be chipmakers or cloud giants. Some could be Canadian companies that help finance, locate, build, manage, or support the physical assets needed as data centres spread into more markets.

Three TSX stocks that fit that theme are Fiera Capital (TSX: FSZ), Colliers International Group (TSX: CIGI), and Element Fleet Management (TSX: EFN). While none are a pure data centre stock, that’s the point. Each touches a different part of the buildout.

Data center servers IT workers — Source: Getty Images

FSZ

Fiera stock is the capital-allocation angle. The company manages money across public markets, private markets, real estate, private credit, infrastructure, and other strategies. In the first quarter of 2026, Fiera stock reported $160.2 billion in assets under management.

Data centres are expensive. These projects need patient capital, real asset expertise, infrastructure knowledge, and managers that understand private markets. Fiera’s infrastructure arm has already shown interest in digital infrastructure, including the Enterprise Data Centre Borden PPP Project. Its infrastructure research also lists data centres as part of the opportunity set.

For investors, Fiera stock offers two things. First, it gives exposure to the growing demand for alternative assets. Pension funds, institutions, and wealthy investors increasingly want real assets tied to long-term themes such as power, transport, digital infrastructure, and real estate. Second, Fiera stock pays a meaningful dividend. The company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.11 per share, or $0.43 annually, now yielding 8.3%.

CIGI

Colliers is the most direct real estate services play. Data centres need land, power access, zoning, cooling, fibre, backup systems, financing, and specialized design. Site selection has become far more complex as power constraints spread across major markets.

That’s where Colliers fits. The company provides commercial real estate services, investment management, engineering, valuation, advisory, leasing, and capital markets services. Its data centre practice works with investors, developers, and operators across the full property life cycle. Colliers Engineering & Design also helps clients with site selection, regulatory approvals, design, and infrastructure planning.

The latest numbers show a business already gaining momentum. In the first quarter of 2026, Colliers’ commercial real estate revenue rose 14% to US$841.2 million. Capital markets revenue jumped 47%, helped by growth across regions. Data centres are attracting serious institutional capital. As more projects move into secondary and emerging North American markets, developers and investors will need local knowledge, technical advice, valuations, and transaction support.

EFN

Element Fleet is the less obvious pick, but it deserves attention. Data centre growth creates a huge amount of activity around construction, utilities, telecom, field service, maintenance, energy systems, and logistics. Those industries depend on fleets.

Element is the largest publicly traded pure-play automotive fleet manager in the world. It helps clients acquire, finance, maintain, manage, fuel, electrify, and remarket vehicles. In the first quarter of 2026, Element reported record net revenue of $324 million, up 17% from last year. Margins were strong, and free cash flow improved.

The data centre angle here is operational. As utilities, contractors, telecom firms, service providers, and large corporations scale physical infrastructure across North America, fleet complexity rises. More vehicles need to be financed, tracked, maintained, optimized, and eventually electrified. Element also offers electric vehicle (EV) fleet and charging-infrastructure support, which could become more important as companies try to lower operating costs and emissions.

Bottom line

These three stocks show how wide the data centre theme has become. Fiera stock can benefit from capital flowing into real assets. Colliers can benefit from site selection, advisory, engineering, and transactions. Element can benefit from the fleets that keep the infrastructure economy moving. For investors looking beyond obvious AI names, that reach and diversification may be the opportunity.