BlackRock Now Owns 80% of Meta’s $14 Billion AI Data Center. Here’s Why It Matters
Meta and BlackRock struck a roughly $14bn deal to build and own a 1-gigawatt data-center campus in El Paso, Texas. BlackRock-managed funds take 80%, Meta keeps 20%, and about $12.5bn of the money is borrowed. Meta still runs the building and stays the only tenant, but it no longer owns most of it. For anyone pouring concrete or pulling cable on these sites, the deal quietly changes who signs your checks and who carries the risk if AI demand cools.
On Tuesday 28 July 2026, Meta and BlackRock announced a venture to develop and operate a data-center campus in El Paso, Texas, with total development costs of about $14bn. It landed the day before Meta’s earnings, one of the largest single AI-infrastructure financings structured so far. The campus is already under construction, designed to deliver 1 gigawatt of compute, with operations expected in 2028.
Here’s the part worth slowing down for. Funds managed by BlackRock, including Global Infrastructure Partners and HPS Investment Partners, take an 80% stake. Meta keeps 20%. At close, Meta contributes land and partly built assets worth around $2.3bn, BlackRock puts in roughly $4.9bn in cash, and about $12.5bn of the deal is funded through debt. Meta even collects a one-time $1bn distribution to line the ownership percentages up. The whole thing sits off Meta’s balance sheet.
Strip away the press-release gloss and the question for the trades is simple. If BlackRock owns the building and Meta just operates it, who does your project manager actually work for, and who’s holding the bag if the AI math stops working? That question is the whole ballgame, whether you’re bidding the work, selling into it, or pricing the risk.
The money behind gigawatt-scale construction is shifting from tech companies to asset managers. Meta built the site, but Wall Street now owns four-fifths of it and lent most of the cost. This structure is fast becoming the template for how the next several hundred billion dollars of vertical construction gets paid for.
What Meta and BlackRock actually agreed
An 80-20 split, financed mostly with borrowed money
The venture is set up to finance, develop, and own the campus jointly, with BlackRock’s funds controlling the majority. Meta remains the sole occupant once it’s finished, so nothing changes for the end user of the compute. What changes is the cap table.
Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Securities advised Meta on the deal. Meta had already described El Paso as an investment of more than $10bn, one of 28 data centers it has in operation or under construction across the US. The site isn’t a plan on a napkin either. More than 2,300 workers were already employed there when the venture was announced, and peak staffing is expected to top 4,000, settling to about 300 permanent operating roles once it goes live.
- Meta contributes ~$2.3bn. Land plus construction-in-progress assets, folded into the venture at close.
- BlackRock contributes ~$4.9bn cash. Real equity from its infrastructure funds, GIP and HPS included.
- ~$12.5bn is debt. A large chunk of BlackRock’s position is funded through a debt transaction, not equity.
- Meta banks a ~$1bn distribution. A one-time payment to align the partners at the 80-20 line.
Why this is the new template
Off-balance-sheet is quietly becoming the default
El Paso follows the same playbook Meta used at its Hyperion campus in Louisiana, where a joint venture issued debt through a holding company (charmingly named Project Sopaipilla Holdings) to keep the liabilities off Meta’s books. Meta has publicly committed to spending $600bn on data-center construction through 2028. No single company wants that much concrete and copper sitting on its own balance sheet, so it’s renting the balance sheet from someone whose job is owning long-life infrastructure.
Meta isn’t alone in this. Google set up a joint venture with Blackstone for an AI-focused cloud business. Microsoft, BlackRock, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX built a fund structure to let institutional investors finance AI infrastructure. Broadcom teamed with Apollo and Blackstone on a platform targeting more than 20 gigawatts. The pattern is consistent: the operator brings the workload, the asset manager brings (and owns) the building. We’ve written before about how much of this announced pipeline is taking longer to actually break ground than the headlines suggest, and financing structures like this one are part of why.
The operator brings the workload. The asset manager brings, and owns, the building. That split is the story of the decade for nonresidential construction.The shape of AI-infrastructure financing in 2026
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The check signer changed, even if the logo on the gate didn’t
On the ground, the Meta sign still hangs at the entrance and Meta still runs the servers. But contractually, the campus is owned by a venture that an asset manager controls four-fifths of. Your general contractor answers to that venture. The venture answers to fund managers whose mandate is investment-grade returns on infrastructure, not shipping AI features. That’s a different owner mindset than a hyperscaler racing to train the next model, and it changes how change orders, schedule risk, and payment terms get handled over a multi-year build.
For the trades, the near-term news is good. Hyperscaler spending has been the main thing keeping US construction in positive territory while the broader nonresidential market stays flat, something we covered when we looked at how data centers are propping up the whole industry. A near-bottomless, institutionally backed pipeline of gigawatt campuses is, on paper, the best thing to happen to specialized contractors in a decade. It de-risks the developer and turns data centers into a proper asset class that pension money can buy.
The risk nobody staffed up for
When close to 90% of the build is borrowed, the downside reprices fast
Now the other side. Roughly $12.5bn of a $14bn project is debt, which is close to 90% leverage on the total build. When an asset manager owns 80% and most of the money is borrowed, you’ve financialized the construction. The moment AI revenue disappoints, that debt reprices, and a levered pipeline can unwind faster than any normal construction downturn. Contractors who staff up for a decade of gigawatt work could find the backlog thinner than the announcements promised.
This isn’t hypothetical hand-wringing. Independent trackers already suggest a large share of the announced 2026 data-center pipeline may slip or cancel, largely because of power and equipment bottlenecks rather than money. Add heavy leverage on top, and you get a pipeline that’s real today but sensitive to the AI monetization story staying intact. The honest read sits between the camps: a builder sees a generational backlog, an investor sees a levered bet on AI demand, and a regional subcontractor wonders whether any of this $14bn reaches the local trades or just the megafirms. All three can be right at once.
| Structure | Who owns the majority | Debt-heavy? | Who operates | Who carries the risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta / BlackRock, El Paso | BlackRock funds (80%) | Yes (~$12.5bn) | Meta | Debt holders and BlackRock funds |
| Meta / Hyperion, Louisiana | JV holding company | Yes (bond-financed) | Meta | Bondholders and JV partners |
| Traditional self-build | The hyperscaler itself | Varies, often lower | The hyperscaler | The hyperscaler’s own balance sheet |
| Stargate (co-owned) | Tech firms and investors jointly | Project-financed | Shared | Shared across co-owners |
On 28 July 2026, the two firms announced a venture to develop and own a 1-gigawatt data-center campus in El Paso, Texas, with total development costs of about $14bn. BlackRock-managed funds take an 80% stake, Meta keeps 20%, and the site is expected to begin operations in 2028. (Source)
About $12.5bn of BlackRock’s investment is funded through a debt transaction. Against the roughly $14bn total development cost, that works out to close to 90% of the build being financed with borrowed money. Meta contributes ~$2.3bn in land and in-progress assets, BlackRock adds ~$4.9bn in cash, and Meta receives a ~$1bn distribution to align ownership. (Source)
Yes. Meta remains the sole occupant and operator of the campus once it’s complete. The change is in ownership and financing, not day-to-day operations. Meta contributes its infrastructure expertise while BlackRock’s funds own the majority of the asset. (Source)
The El Paso campus is expected to support more than 4,000 construction jobs at peak, with over 2,300 workers already on site when the deal was announced. After completion, it moves to roughly 300 permanent operating positions. (Source)
It keeps roughly $14bn of liabilities off Meta’s own books, mirroring the structure Meta used at its Louisiana Hyperion campus through a holding company. With Meta committed to $600bn of data-center spend through 2028, no single balance sheet can carry it all, so operators are increasingly partnering with asset managers to fund and own the buildings. (Source)
It’s part of a wider shift. Google partnered with Blackstone on an AI cloud venture, Microsoft joined BlackRock and MGX on an infrastructure fund, and Broadcom teamed with Apollo and Blackstone on a 20-gigawatt-plus platform. The common thread is external, institutional capital owning the physical buildout while tech firms operate it. (Source)
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