Meta Platforms teams up with BlackRock to build a 20 trillion won data center

[Financial News] Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, will team up with the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, to build a $14 billion artificial intelligence data center, worth about 20 trillion won. Instead of owning the data center outright, the company has chosen a new investment model that uses Wall Street capital to ease the enormous burden of AI infrastructure spending.
Meta Platforms said on the 28th local time that it will establish a joint venture with BlackRock to build an AI data center in El Paso, Texas.
BlackRock's fund will hold an 80% stake in the joint venture, while Meta Platforms will own the remaining 20%. The total project cost of $14 billion will be shared according to those ownership ratios.
Meta Platforms will contribute about $2.3 billion in land and assets under construction, while BlackRock will invest cash raised through borrowing and other means. To align the ownership split at 80-20, Meta Platforms will receive about $1 billion back from the joint venture as a one-time distribution.
After completion, Meta Platforms will sign a long-term lease to use the entire data center. The lease can be extended in four-year increments and may remain in place for up to 20 years.
The El Paso data center will be built with 1GW of computing capacity and is expected to begin full-scale operations in 2028.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, said, "Building infrastructure for superintelligence is key to spreading the benefits of AI to everyone." He added, "Through our partnership with BlackRock, we can combine world-class data center operations with global infrastructure investment expertise, allowing us to expand faster and at a larger scale."
The deal is being seen as an example of how big tech companies are increasingly tapping outside capital as AI investment costs surge. Major technology firms have recently been issuing tens of billions of dollars in bonds or partnering with investment funds to finance data center construction.
However, concerns have also been raised about investment efficiency.
Matt Britzman, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said, "Meta Platforms does not currently operate a large-scale cloud business that sells excess data center capacity to outside customers, like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure." He added, "Questions remain about this level of investment in terms of cash flow, operating costs and return on investment."

[email protected] Kim Kyung-min Reporter