Meta and BlackRock form a strategic venture to develop a 1GW data center campus in El Paso, Texas, set to cost ~$14B and bring capacity online starting in 2028
Meta and BlackRock announce a venture to finance the development and operation of a data center campus in El Paso, Texas
Context & Ripple Effects
El Paso had already shifted from Meta’s initial commitment to a planned investment of more than $10B, while BlackRock was reported to be leading a more than $12B debt sale tied to the site. This venture formalizes the financing and operating structure behind that expansion.
The deal also sits alongside Meta’s far larger Louisiana buildout, where it recently added $40B to a campus targeting more than 5GW of compute. Together, the projects show Meta pairing very large capacity plans with specialized external capital.
First-order effects
- Meta and BlackRock will jointly finance, develop, and operate the 1GW El Paso campus, with capacity scheduled to begin coming online in 2028.
- BlackRock gains a direct role in a large AI-oriented infrastructure asset, while Meta secures a dedicated development vehicle for the El Paso buildout.
Second-order effects
- The venture gives lenders and infrastructure investors a defined counterpart and asset structure for financing a hyperscale campus, reinforcing the financing path foreshadowed by the reported El Paso debt sale.
- Other large compute buyers may face pressure to combine long-term capacity commitments with outside capital, rather than fund every campus solely through their own balance sheets.
Third-order effects
- If replicated, AI data-center expansion could increasingly be organized as financeable infrastructure partnerships: technology companies provide demand and operating expertise while asset managers supply capital and development capacity.
- That model may concentrate access to frontier compute among companies that can secure both multi-gigawatt sites and large-scale infrastructure financing, though execution still depends on bringing capacity online as planned.
The trend: AI infrastructure is becoming an institutional-asset financing market, with hyperscalers increasingly separating compute demand from the capital structures used to build campuses.