Meta has purchased 1,039 acres of land in El Paso, Texas, for $8.5 million. The company plans to build a 1-gigawatt AI data center campus on the site, with projected costs exceeding $10 billion.
Why the site was chosen
The land sits in an area already zoned for heavy industrial use, which cuts down on permitting delays. El Paso also offers access to renewable energy and a growing fiber-optic network. The city's location near the U.S.-Mexico border gives Meta options for future connectivity. Local officials have been courting big tech companies for years, and this deal is the largest single land sale in the region's recent history.
What the campus will do
The facility is designed to power AI workloads — training large language models and running inference at scale. A 1 GW campus can draw as much electricity as a small city. Meta has been investing heavily in AI infrastructure, and this site is one of its biggest bets yet. The company already operates data centers in other states, but this one is specifically flagged for AI.
Local impact and timeline
The project is expected to create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions once operational. El Paso County officials have not disclosed any tax incentives, but similar deals in other states have included breaks worth hundreds of millions. Meta has not said when construction will start or when the campus will go live. The company is still finalizing engineering and power-supply agreements.
