Meta sixfolds its El Paso AI data center bet to $10 billion
The campus is targeting 1 gigawatt of capacity by 2028 as hyperscalers pour capital into Texas.
EL PASO, Texas — Meta has raised its planned investment in an El Paso AI data center to $10 billion, up from $1.5 billion — a more than sixfold increase as the company accelerates spending on AI infrastructure. The project, known internally as Project Seafox, aims to bring 1 gigawatt of capacity online by 2028 and will span roughly 1,000 acres at full build-out.
Meta says the site will create about 300 permanent jobs and require more than 4,000 construction workers at peak. The company has pledged a $500,000 workforce-development grant with El Paso public schools and committed to restoring 200% of the water it consumes to local watersheds. Part of the campus power will come from 813 modular gas generators slated to come online by 2027.
Why it matters
El Paso joins Abilene and Shackelford County in a band of Texas counties absorbing tens of billions in AI infrastructure within months of each other. The economic upside is real, but so is the strain: critics point to water use, air quality and tax incentives. How Texas communities negotiate those tradeoffs will shape whether the state's AI boom is broadly shared or narrowly extractive.
Big things are happening, El Paso.— Meta, data center blog
Reported by Next in Austin. Based on reporting from CNBC.
