Meta and BlackRock Launch $14 Billion AI Data Center Venture in Texas

Meta Platforms and BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, announced on Tuesday a joint venture to develop and operate a massive data center campus in El Paso, Texas. The project is expected to cost approximately $14 billion and highlights the escalating race among tech giants to secure infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads.

The unprecedented scale of AI investment has pushed companies like Meta to seek external capital from fund managers such as BlackRock, while also turning to debt markets. BlackRock-managed funds will take an 80% ownership stake in the venture, with Meta retaining the remaining 20%. A portion of BlackRock’s investment will be financed through $12.5 billion in debt, and Meta will receive a $1 billion distribution to align ownership. Meta is contributing land and in-progress construction assets valued at roughly $2.3 billion, while BlackRock will make a cash contribution of about $4.9 billion.

Under the arrangement, Meta will enter into lease agreements with the venture, allowing it to secure computing capacity without directly funding and owning the campus itself. This structure comes at a time when investors are increasingly questioning whether massive data center investments will yield returns. Meta’s shares, which were down marginally in volatile trading on Tuesday, have fallen about 10% so far this year as costs related to AI expansion draw scrutiny.

"The scale of spending still raises valid questions about cash flow, future operating costs, and investment returns, particularly as Meta doesn’t (for now) have a large cloud business selling spare capacity to external customers," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

The El Paso campus, already under construction, is designed to provide 1 gigawatt of compute capacity—critical for Meta’s AI technologies and core business operations. Operations are expected to begin in 2028. Meta has previously said it plans to invest $600 billion in AI infrastructure, including data centers and new jobs in the U.S., by 2028. The company is also building several other gigawatt-scale sites across the country, including a project in rural Louisiana that could expand to 5 gigawatts, with investment potentially exceeding $50 billion.

Borrowing by tech companies has surged, with BofA Global Research noting that AI-related bond issuance reached $270 billion by early July this year, nearly double the total for all of 2025. Meanwhile, media reports have indicated that Meta is in talks to lease computing power to AI firm Anthropic in a potential deal worth up to $10 billion over two years.

To drive partnerships with governments and investors for its AI projects, Meta earlier this year appointed Dina Powell McCormick, a former Trump administration official, as president and vice chairman. She joins other senior executives focusing on the company’s global fleet of data centers. The expansion has not been without controversy; protests against AI data center development have occurred in 142 locations across 42 states earlier this month. Morgan Stanley & Co and J.P. Morgan Securities served as financial advisors to Meta on the transaction.