Meta and BlackRock announced a joint venture on July 28, 2026 to develop and own a 1-gigawatt AI data center campus in El Paso, Texas, with total development costs of approximately $14 billion. Under the structure, BlackRock-managed funds own 80% of the venture while Meta retains 20% ownership. Meta will retain full operational control and lease the entire facility under a 4-year term with four 4-year extension options. The campus is already under construction and expected to come online in 2028.
BlackRock will contribute approximately $4.9 billion in cash, with $12.5 billion funded through debt financing provided by BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, and HPS Investment Partners. Meta will contribute land and in-progress construction assets valued at $2.3 billion, plus residual value guarantees with an aggregate threshold of approximately $13 billion (declining over time). Meta will receive a one-time $1 billion distribution. The project employs over 2,300 workers on-site, with 4,000 peak construction jobs and 300 permanent operational roles once complete.
This financing structure mirrors Meta's earlier Louisiana data center partnership and signals a shift in how mega-scale AI infrastructure is funded: tech companies maintain operations while asset managers take majority ownership stakes to offload capital burden. Meta has committed $600 billion in AI infrastructure spending through 2028 across 28 US data centers in operation or under construction.
For architects planning AI production clusters, the deal clarifies financing: gigawatt-scale builds now rely on infrastructure funds as anchors. The BlackRock partnership also indicates energy and power-delivery constraints are now as critical as chip supply—the real bottleneck in 2026–2028 is electricity, not accelerators. Meta is paying for operations and compute capacity on a long-term lease, transforming capex intensity into operational expense predictability.