How Trump's push for data centers is driving a boom in gas power plants, and a look at Meta's El Paso data center, which will have 813 gas-burning generators
In March, a developer working on a Meta data center in El Paso applied to power the site with a gas-burning plant large enough to supply electricity to 300,000 homes.
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta’s El Paso buildout has rapidly moved beyond its initial commitment: the company raised its planned investment to more than $10 billion before joining BlackRock on a 1GW El Paso campus venture intended to begin adding capacity in 2028. The gas-plant application and planned generator fleet show that power supply is being developed alongside the campus, rather than treated as a separate utility constraint.
The project also sits within a broader rush to secure generation for computing loads: Global Energy Monitor identified more than 97 GW of US gas projects earmarked for data centers in 2025. Meta has already faced scrutiny over power-plant plans tied to its Louisiana data center, sharpening the tension between new firm power and its earlier net-zero pledge.
First-order effects
- Meta’s El Paso developer is seeking dedicated gas-fired capacity for a site planned to use 813 gas-burning generators, putting on-site or project-linked generation at the center of the campus’s power plan.
- The proposal gives the El Paso expansion a route to power its enlarged footprint without relying solely on available grid supply.
Second-order effects
- Other data-center developers pursuing large US campuses face stronger pressure to lock in powered capacity and generation arrangements as Meta and BlackRock advance their 1GW El Paso venture.
- Gas-power developers gain a growing data-center customer base, while critics are likely to extend the emissions concerns raised over Meta’s Louisiana plans to El Paso’s generation buildout.
Third-order effects
- If dedicated gas generation becomes a standard response to constrained power access, data-center development will increasingly resemble utility infrastructure development, with energized capacity shaping where campuses can be built.
- The resulting collision between AI-scale power demand and corporate emissions commitments will make the generation mix—not just the data center itself—a central point of scrutiny for large operators such as Meta.
The trend: AI data-center expansion is turning reliable, project-linked electricity supply into a core determinant of campus development, accelerating gas-generation proposals alongside new compute capacity.