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Meta to build $14B El Paso data center campus with BlackRock
Brief published July 30, 2026 ยท Original source published July 29, 2026
Original reporting by Maria Deutscher at siliconangle.com.
Automated brief. Verify important details at the original source.
What happened
Meta Platforms announced plans to build an AI data center campus in El Paso, Texas, in collaboration with BlackRock. The two companies plan to invest $14 billion in the project. No construction timeline, capacity figures, or operational targets were supplied in the announcement. BlackRock is described as the world's largest asset manager, making this a pairing of a major AI infrastructure operator with a large-scale financial backer rather than a purely internal capital deployment.
Why it matters
A $14 billion campus signals continued large-scale physical buildout of AI compute infrastructure. Routing that investment through a financial partner like BlackRock rather than solely through Meta's own balance sheet suggests a model where asset managers co-fund AI infrastructure, which could influence how future large data center projects are structured and financed across the industry.
What to watch
Whether additional details emerge on campus capacity, power sourcing, and the specific financial structure of the BlackRock partnership, as those factors will determine the project's actual compute impact and replicability as a financing model.