Meta and BlackRock to Build Joint AI Data Center: Construction Costs to Be Covered by External Capital

BlackRock Takes 80% Stake, Meta 20% in Joint Venture
"AI Infrastructure Financing Costs Expected to Keep Rising"

Meta, which operates Facebook, announced that it will invest jointly with BlackRock, a major asset management firm, to establish a joint venture and build an artificial intelligence (AI) data center. As competition heats up for investment in AI infrastructure and securing capital becomes more challenging, Meta is focusing on financing construction costs with outside capital. There are growing concerns that interest rates for AI infrastructure financing will continue to rise in the future.

On July 28 (local time), Meta announced that it would establish a joint venture with BlackRock to construct an AI data center in El Paso, Texas. The joint venture's equity will be held 80% by funds managed by BlackRock and 20% by Meta. Both companies have agreed to cover the $14 billion (approximately KRW 20 trillion) construction cost according to their respective equity stakes.

Meta will contribute land and equipment worth $2.3 billion in kind, while BlackRock will provide the remaining construction costs in cash. To secure funding, BlackRock issued $12.55 billion in bonds at an annual interest rate of 7.5% the previous day.

Meta will sign a contract to lease the entire data center once it is completed. The lease can be extended in four-year increments, up to a maximum of 20 years. The data center’s computing capacity will reach 1 gigawatt (GW) and is scheduled to start full-scale operations in 2028.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, stated in a press release, "Building infrastructure for superintelligence is critical to ensuring the benefits of this technology are shared by everyone," adding, "Through our partnership with BlackRock, we are combining our expertise in designing and operating world-class data centers with one of the world's top infrastructure investors to move faster and at greater scale."

Reuters Yonhap News

However, as Meta covers most of the data center investment with external capital, concerns about overheating in AI infrastructure investments are mounting. According to Bank of America (BofA), the volume of new bonds issued by AI companies from January to early July this year amounted to $270 billion, nearly double the amount for all of 2025.

Matt Britzman, lead analyst at UK-based brokerage Hargreaves Lansdown, commented, "Meta’s investment is rapidly increasing despite the company not having a large-scale cloud business that could sell spare capacity to outside customers," adding, "Investors continue to question the cash flow, future operating costs, and return on investment for projects of this scale."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.