Meta Breaks Ground on $1.5 Billion AI Data Center in El Paso, Texas
Meta today announced the commencement of construction on a new, cutting-edge data center in El Paso, Texas, designed to support the company’s rapidly expanding artificial intelligence workloads.
Located in partnership with The Borderplex Alliance, the economic development agency for El Paso, the facility represents an initial investment exceeding $1.5 billion and is projected to create approximately 100 operational jobs, alongside 1,800 construction positions at peak building times. This investment underscores the growing demand for infrastructure to power increasingly complex AI models, which are becoming integral to a wide range of applications from virtual assistants to advanced image processing.
The El Paso data center is designed to scale to 1 gigawatt of capacity and will utilize a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system aiming for zero water usage for the majority of the year, aligning with Meta’s commitment to water stewardship and a goal to be water positive by 2030. The company also plans to match the data center’s electricity consumption with 100% clean and renewable energy, supported by infrastructure upgrades in collaboration with El Paso Electric. Meta’s broader sustainability efforts are detailed in their sustainability report.
Beyond the immediate economic impact, Meta is also supporting local small businesses through its Community Accelerator program and providing Community Action Grants to El Paso. This data center marks Meta’s third in Texas, bringing the company’s total investment in the state to over $10 billion and its workforce to more than 2,500 employees. You can learn more about Meta’s data center locations here.
Construction is underway, and Meta officials stated they look forward to continuing to build the infrastructure needed to develop and deploy artificial intelligence technologies.
We’re breaking ground on a new, cutting-edge AI-focused data center that can scale to a 1GW data center site. Located in El Paso, Texas, this will be our 29th data center, and will help us to deliver top-tier AI models as we work to fulfill the possibilities of AI and build toward superintelligence. We’re proud to be collaborating with The Borderplex Alliance, the economic development agency representing El Paso, to bring this data center to life.
Building for the Future of AI
This will be a powerhouse data center optimized to support our growing AI workloads and will be essential to bringing our technologies to life. An example of industry-leading infrastructure, this data center can scale to 1GW and represents a pivotal moment as we invest in our AI work.
AI, and its inference and training needs, is still evolving, so our design needs to balance what we know today with what we might know in the future. Different AI configurations will require different approaches to hardware and network systems designs, so our new data centers are built to accommodate flexibility. For example, we’ve designed the El Paso data center to have systems that can support both the traditional servers of today and future generations of AI-enabled hardware.
Our data centers are more than just buildings – the hardware they contain enables us to continue to innovate and deliver models that help people all over the world connect, find community, and grow businesses. From smart glasses and AI assistants to live translations and video editing tools, our products rely on data centers like this one.
Supporting the El Paso Community
El Paso is a vibrant city with robust infrastructure and a skilled workforce, and we’re thrilled to contribute to El Paso’s economic growth and technological advancement with the construction of our newest data center.
We’re committed to playing a positive role in the long-term vitality of the communities that host our data centers, and are collaborating with local partners to fulfill this goal. Once the initial phase is completed, the first facilities will represent an investment of more than $1.5 billion and will support approximately 100 operational jobs. We anticipate that over 1,800 construction workers will be onsite at peak for this phase. (Updated on October 15, 2025 at 2:00PM PT to clarify these figures represent an initial phase) We’re also supporting local El Paso-area small businesses through our Community Accelerator program, which builds digital skills and shows how to leverage AI tools, including Meta AI, to help them grow their businesses. And we’re bringing our Community Action Grants to El Paso next year.
This is our third data center in Texas, and altogether, these three data centers have supported thousands of jobs for skilled workers in the state. In total, Meta has invested over $10 billion in Texas and has more than 2,500 full-time employees across the state between our data centers, offices, and research lab.
Prioritizing Environmental Stewardship
We design and build our data centers with efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability in mind, and our data center buildings will achieve LEED Gold certification once they are operational. This means our buildings meet high standards for energy efficiency, clean and renewable energy, water conservation, supply chain responsibility, and recycling.
Water
We strive to be good water stewards in communities where we have data centers. That’s why we plan to use a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system in this data center that will use zero water for a majority of the year. We’ve also set an ambitious goal for ourselves – we aim to be water positive in 2030, meaning we’ll restore more water than we consume. And in El Paso, will restore 200% of the water consumed by our El Paso Data Center to local watersheds.
To meet this goal, we’ve partnered with local organizations to support water restoration projects that benefit the local community. In collaboration with DigDeep, we’ll help provide running water to El Paso communities in need. We’ll also collaborate with Texas Water Action Collaborative on water restoration projects in the El Paso community.
Electricity
Our El Paso data center’s electricity use will be matched with 100% clean and renewable energy. And through our agreement with El Paso Electric, we’ve paid for new grid infrastructure required to connect the data center, including new transmission lines and substations.
We’re thrilled to break ground on this new data center and look forward to continuing to build the infrastructure needed to develop AI.
