Meta Platforms and asset manager BlackRock have formed a joint venture to finance and build a data center campus in El Paso, Texas, in a deal that hands the investment giant majority ownership of one of the largest AI infrastructure projects announced this year.
The structure of the deal
Under the arrangement, funds managed by BlackRock will hold an 80% stake in the venture, with Meta retaining the remaining 20%. The financing breaks down as follows:
- Meta's contribution: land and partially completed construction work valued at roughly $2.3 billion
- BlackRock's cash contribution: about $4.9 billion
- Debt financing arranged by BlackRock: roughly $12.5 billion
- Total development cost: around $14 billion
- Rebalancing payment: Meta separately receives a $1 billion cash distribution from the venture to align the ownership split
Rather than owning the finished facility, Meta will lease computing capacity back from the joint venture once it is operational — a structure that keeps the asset, and much of its cost, off Meta's own balance sheet.
What is actually being built
The campus spans roughly 1,000 acres and is designed to deliver 1 gigawatt of compute capacity, primarily to support Meta's AI workloads. Construction has already been underway for more than six months, and the facility is expected to begin operations in 2028. It is one of 28 data center sites Meta currently operates or has under construction globally.
Part of a broader financing pattern
This is not the first time Meta has used this kind of structure. It previously arranged a similar deal with asset manager Blue Owl Capital for its Hyperion data center project in Louisiana, where Blue Owl likewise took an 80% ownership stake. The El Paso arrangement with BlackRock effectively repeats that template at a larger scale.
The pattern reflects a wider shift across the AI infrastructure buildout. Combined AI-related bond issuance reached roughly $270 billion by early July this year, nearly double the total for all of 2025, as hyperscalers turn to asset managers, private credit funds, and debt markets to fund a buildout that is outpacing what their own cash flow and balance sheets can comfortably absorb. More than 700 data centers are reportedly under active construction across 38 US states, a scale of concurrent building that has made external capital increasingly necessary rather than optional.
Meta has said it intends to invest roughly $600 billion in AI infrastructure and related US jobs through 2028, a figure that has drawn scrutiny from investors watching capital expenditure climb across the industry. One equity analyst covering the sector noted that spending at this scale continues to raise legitimate questions about cash flow, future operating costs, and eventual returns on the investment.
Why lease instead of own
Structuring the deal as a lease-back arrangement lets Meta report the computing capacity as an operating expense rather than carrying the full capital cost and depreciation on its own books. For a company facing investor pressure over ballooning capital expenditure, moving big-ticket infrastructure into jointly owned vehicles — while still securing guaranteed access to the compute it needs — offers a way to keep building at the pace AI development currently demands without every dollar showing up as Meta's own debt.
What it means
The deal illustrates how thoroughly Wall Street has become embedded in the AI buildout: the facility exists to serve Meta's AI ambitions, but the balance sheet risk sits largely with BlackRock's investors and lenders instead. Expect more of these joint-ownership, lease-back structures across the industry as hyperscalers try to keep expanding compute capacity without absorbing the full financial exposure of owning it outright.
