Financing one gigawatt of compute through a venture
Meta and BlackRock announced a venture to own and develop a data-center campus under construction in El Paso, Texas, with 1 gigawatt of compute capacity. Meta plans to be the initial sole tenant and use the capacity for AI-model development and its core services. The companies expect capacity to begin coming online in 2028.
Funds managed by BlackRock will hold 80% of the venture and Meta 20%. Total development costs are approximately $14 billion, covering buildings and long-lived power, cooling, and connectivity infrastructure. Meta will contribute land and construction-in-progress assets valued at about $2.3 billion, while BlackRock will contribute about $4.9 billion in cash. Part of BlackRock's investment will be funded with proceeds from $12.5 billion of debt financing.
Why it matters
The structure shows that the AI infrastructure bottleneck extends beyond buying accelerators to land, electricity, thermal systems, networks, and multidecade capital recovery. Meta keeps its construction and operating expertise while adding outside infrastructure capital to pursue speed and balance-sheet flexibility. The initial leases run for four years with four extension options, potentially providing up to 20 years of use.
Conditions still to verify
The transaction was expected to close shortly after the announcement, but operating capacity still depends on construction, power delivery, cooling, and network schedules. Meta's residual-value guarantees and leases also mean the company has not transferred every financial risk. The 1GW figure is planned compute capacity, not current operating capacity, and the roughly $14 billion represents development spending over time.