Meta Platforms is accelerating its AI push with a $1.5 billion investment in a new data center campus in El Paso, Texas. The facility, expected to be fully operational by 2028, marks Meta9s 29th data center worldwide and its third in the Lone Star State.
Designed to scale up to a 1-gigawatt site, this campus will consume enough energy to power a city the size of San Francisco for a day. It underlines the intense competition among hyperscalersAmazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoftwhich are projected to invest over $360 billion in AI infrastructure in 2025 alone.
While the center is set to support advanced AI workloads, it also brings economic opportunities to El Paso:
- 100 permanent jobs once operational
- Over 1,800 construction jobs at peak building phases
- Local workforce and robust electrical grid as key factors
Meta said the project will run on 100 percent renewable energy and use a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system to recycle water continuously. The company also pledged to restore twice the water consumed by the facility to local watersheds, exceeding its goal to be water-positive by 2030.
“The fastest gazelle finds their place, others follow, and Meta is the fastest gazelle in the industry, as far as I am concerned,” said Jon Barela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance.
This expansion builds on Meta9s more than $10 billion in investments across Texas and its workforce of 2,500 employees in the state. The El Paso site joins a growing network of AI hubs that are reshaping how digital infrastructures power our global economy.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
