Meta continues to invest big in the AI future, with the company today breaking ground on its latest data center project, a planned 1GW data facility, located in El Paso, Texas, which will enable Meta to “deliver top-tier AI models as we work to fulfill the possibilities of AI and build toward superintelligence.”
As you can see in this artist’s rendering, Meta’s El Paso super center will be a massive, sprawling base, incorporating the latest data processing technologies and power usage processes to solidify Meta’s leadership in the broader AI race.
As explained by Meta:
“This will be a powerhouse data center optimized to support our growing AI workloads and will be essential to bringing our technologies to life. An example of industry-leading infrastructure, this data center can scale to 1GW and represents a pivotal moment as we invest in our AI work.”
Meta’s El Paso project is projected to cost the company over $1.5 billion in total, and is part of the “hundreds of billions” in AI infrastructure that the company has planned over the coming years.
Indeed, as of right now, Meta has 29 data centers or in-development projects in the U.S. alone, with its most recent Prometheus (in Ohio) and Hyperion (Louisiana) initiatives being primarily focused on powering AI, and building the next stage of Zuckerberg’s “superintelligence” vision.
Which also requires a lot of resources, including water and electricity, both of which are being swallowed up by the rising amount of AI projects.
For this data center alone, Meta will be permitted to use up to 750,000 gallons of potable water daily within the initial construction period, which will increase to 1.5 million gallons after the campus is fully built out.
That’s a huge amount of additional strain on local resources, though Meta is also contributing jobs, and giving back to the region.
The project will be Meta’s third data center in Texas, and overall, Meta says that it’s invested over $10 billion in Texas, supporting over 2,500 full-time employees across the state between its data centers, offices, and research lab.
So there is a balance to be maintained, but it’s worth noting the scale of resources required for such projects, and the impacts that AI processing, and the push to become the leaders in the AI race, will have on local economies.
Will that eventually become problematic, with so many U.S. companies looking to lead the AI race?
I mean, there are already environmental concerns, and questions over the viability of managing the impacts of climate change in alignment with evolving AI projects. But Meta is hoping to make its projects more environmentally-friendly, and reduce such impacts where it can.
But no matter how you look at it, it’s a massive undertaking, which Meta’s hoping will give it a leg up on the competition in the broader AI race.
And if capacity ends up being the differentiating factor, it’s hard to see anyone beating out Meta on this front, which could eventually see the company become the leader in the AI space, and the key provider for a growing amount of AI projects.
