Meta has begun construction on one of the world’s largest artificial intelligence (AI)-optimised data centres, a facility that will eventually be capable of delivering up to 1GW of power to support the company’s growing AI ambitions. The new campus, located in El Paso, Texas, represents Meta’s 29th global data centre and signals a deepening commitment to the infrastructure required to train and run next-generation AI models.
The scale of the project highlights the pace at which AI workloads are reshaping the global data centre landscape. As Meta races to develop increasingly complex systems across social networking, immersive experiences, and generative AI, the company’s physical infrastructure is evolving to match, designed for both today’s demands and the still-unknown configurations of future AI hardware.
Meta said the El Paso facility will create around 1,800 construction jobs at its peak and support approximately 100 permanent operational roles in its first phase, representing an investment of more than $1.5 billion. The project was announced in collaboration with The Borderplex Alliance, an economic development agency representing the El Paso region.
AI is rewriting the rules of infrastructure
The El Paso data centre has been engineered to meet the specific demands of AI inference and training, which require enormous computing power, high-speed interconnects, and energy efficiency at scale. Unlike traditional cloud or enterprise data centres, AI-optimised facilities must accommodate highly variable workloads and new hardware architectures that evolve at a rapid pace.
Meta said the new site’s systems will be capable of supporting both current server configurations and the next generation of AI-enabled hardware. This includes infrastructure to support Meta’s family of AI models and products, from assistants and translation tools to content recommendation systems and immersive applications.
The company described the project as a “powerhouse data centre” that balances efficiency with flexibility. Each new facility, it said, is designed to deliver the computational backbone for technologies that help billions of people connect, collaborate, and create.
Industry analysts have noted that hyperscalers like Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are entering a new era of infrastructure investment, where the performance and availability of AI models depend as much on physical engineering, power, cooling, and latency, as they do on algorithmic advances.
Balancing AI growth with sustainability
The sheer energy intensity of AI workloads has placed sustainability under greater scrutiny, and Meta said the El Paso campus will set new benchmarks for environmental responsibility. The company plans to match all electricity consumption with 100 per cent renewable energy and achieve LEED Gold certification for energy efficiency and resource management.
Working with El Paso Electric, Meta is funding new grid infrastructure, including transmission lines and substations, to ensure reliable supply while supporting broader regional energy resilience.
Water use, a growing concern in arid regions, has also been addressed through a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system that will use zero water for most of the year. Meta has pledged to go further, committing to restore 200 per cent of the water consumed by the data centre back into local watersheds through partnerships with DigDeep and the Texas Water Action Collaborative.
The company has set a global target to become water positive by 2030, meaning it will restore more water than it uses across all its operations.
Building local capability in an AI-driven economy
Beyond physical infrastructure, Meta said it will invest in the El Paso community through AI skills and small business support programmes, including its Community Accelerator initiative, which teaches entrepreneurs how to use AI tools to scale operations.
The new facility will be Meta’s third data centre in Texas, bringing its total state investment to over $10 billion and expanding a workforce of 2,500 employees across data centres, offices, and research labs.
The choice of El Paso reflects both strategic and symbolic priorities. Situated at a key intersection between the United States and Mexico, the site offers strong infrastructure and a skilled workforce, aligning with Meta’s broader push to embed AI capability within diverse local economies.
As global competition for AI compute intensifies, Meta’s one-gigawatt data centre marks more than just another hyperscale project. It represents a physical manifestation of the new AI economy, one where innovation, energy, and sustainability converge to power a future defined by machine intelligence.
