Meta boosts West Texas AI data centre investment to $10bn

Meta Platforms has significantly increased its investment in an AI data center in El Paso, Texas, from $1.5 billion to $10 billion. This expansion aims to support the company's growing AI compute demands and underscores the critical role of physical infrastructure in artificial intelligence competition.

• Investment in the El Paso, Texas AI data centre has jumped from about $1.5bn to $10bn
• The site will scale to 1 gigawatt and support Meta’s expanding AI compute demands

What happened: Meta scales Texas AI data centre investment amid AI race

Meta Platforms has increased its planned investment in a West Texas AI data centre to $10bn, up from around $1.5bn, according to CNBC reporting cited by Reuters. The facility is located in El Paso and will become Meta’s 29th data centre globally and its third in Texas. It is designed to support large-scale artificial intelligence workloads, including the training and operation of advanced AI models that require substantial computing power. The project reflects Meta’s ongoing shift towards building dedicated infrastructure for AI systems instead of relying solely on external cloud capacity.

The site is expected to reach 1 gigawatt of power capacity and open in 2028. That scale places it among the largest data centre projects in Meta’s global portfolio. The expansion signals how quickly AI infrastructure demand is rising as companies race to secure the land, electricity and chips needed to support next-generation models.

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Why this is important

The investment highlights how artificial intelligence competition is now tightly linked to physical infrastructure. A 1-gigawatt data centre requires a vast electricity supply, advanced cooling systems and long-term grid coordination, making access to energy a strategic constraint on AI development.

Across the industry, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are also expanding data centre capacity at record speed. This wave of spending is reshaping energy markets and increasing pressure on regional grids, particularly in US states such as Texas, where the availability of land and power attracts hyperscale projects. It also underscores a broader shift: leadership in AI increasingly depends on access to compute infrastructure, not only on algorithms or software innovation. Companies that secure large-scale capacity early may gain a durable advantage in deploying and monetising AI services worldwide.