Meta Platforms increases investment in El Paso data center to $10B

The company said in a blog post, “Today, Meta is thrilled to confirm the El Paso Data Center will grow to 1 gigawatt. We are increasing our investment in El Paso to more than $10 billion and will now support more than 300 jobs at the data center once completed. Our construction needs will also grow and we now anticipate that over 4,000 construction workers will be onsite at the peak of construction… On the operations side, as we shared last October, we plan to use a water efficient closed-loop, liquid-cooled system that recirculates the same water and will use zero water for a majority of the year. To put that into perspective, our water use is projected to be similar to a typical golf course in west Texas. We’ve partnered with El Paso Water to ensure our full site buildout remains within our existing water and wastewater service agreement. We’re committed to being a positive contributor in communities like El Paso, and that includes investing in new clean energy. We have worked closely with El Paso Electric from the beginning to plan for our data center energy needs and ensure we are paying the full costs for the energy used by our data centers so consumers are not negatively impacted. We also plan to add enough clean and renewable energy to the El Paso grid to match 100% of the electricity use of our data center. As of today, Meta has energy projects across Texas adding over 5,000 MW of new clean energy. In El Paso, we have also invested more than $8 million in local infrastructure improvements, including road infrastructure, and we pay the full costs of water and wastewater service.”