META × BLACKROCK EL PASO — KEY FACTS (JULY 28, 2026)
● Total development cost: ~$14 billion (excludes chips — 1GW typically costs $35-50B all-in)
● Ownership: BlackRock funds 80% (Global Infrastructure Partners + HPS Investment Partners) · Meta 20%
● BlackRock funding: $4.9B cash + $12.5B in bonds sold July 27
● Meta contribution: Land and in-progress construction assets worth ~$2.3B + $1B cash distribution received
● Capacity: 1 gigawatt — same scale as Nvidia-SK Group Vera Rubin factory (signed July 25)
● Online: 2028
● Jobs: 4,000+ construction at peak, 300 operational
● Anthropic angle: Reuters reports Meta in talks to lease compute to Anthropic — up to $10B over two years
● Meta Q2 earnings: Reporting July 29 — CapEx forecast update expected
The Deal Structure — Why Meta Sold 80% to BlackRock
According to Meta's official press release, BlackRock-managed funds will own 80% of the El Paso joint venture while Meta retains 20% and enters into lease agreements for the entire campus with a four-year initial term. Mark Zuckerberg said the partnership "allows us to move faster and at greater scale." The structure offloads construction financing risk — $4.9 billion cash plus $12.5 billion in bonds — onto BlackRock's capital, while Meta retains operational control through the lease and use agreements. As Forbes notes, this mirrors the structure Meta used for its Hyperion campus in Louisiana earlier in 2026, where Blue Owl Capital took 80% via $27 billion in project bonds.
The $14 billion figure is specifically development costs. As Bloomberg via Insurance Journal reports, a 1GW data center typically costs $35 billion to $50 billion in total once chips are included. The development cost and the all-in cost are different numbers. This facility needs Nvidia Blackwell or Vera Rubin GPUs to operate, which are separate from the construction budget — and which BlackRock's bonds do not cover.
The Anthropic Angle — Meta as Compute Provider
CNBC reports that Reuters has reported Meta is in talks to lease computing power to Anthropic in a potential deal worth up to $10 billion over two years. If confirmed, this would make Meta a compute supplier to one of its primary competitors — the same competitive tension as Anthropic's $1.25 billion per month arrangement with SpaceXAI (Elon Musk's company). Meta Compute, the initiative announced alongside this deal, is explicitly designed to sell spare capacity to external customers — meaning Meta is positioning itself as an AI cloud provider, not just an AI product company. That changes Meta's competitive position significantly: a company that previously had no hyperscaler cloud business would be selling AI compute to frontier labs.
Wall Street Is Now Financing the AI Race
The BlackRock deal is the clearest signal yet of a structural shift in how AI infrastructure is financed. Until 2025, hyperscalers funded data centers entirely from their own capital expenditure. Meta is now funding multiple gigawatt-scale facilities through institutional investors rather than its own balance sheet. As Forbes puts it, BlackRock taking 80% of the El Paso campus is "one of the clearest signs yet that Wall Street is becoming a major financier of the AI race." BlackRock already manages the $12.5 billion in bonds that financed the structure — making it simultaneously an equity owner and a debt financier of the same AI infrastructure. The next logical question is whether Google, Microsoft, and Amazon follow the same model for their next generation of capacity.
Context: AI Infrastructure Spending in 2026
| Deal | Scale | Online |
|---|
| Nvidia × SK Group (July 25) | $500B+, 2GW Vera Rubin | 2027 |
| Meta × BlackRock El Paso (July 28) | $14B dev cost, 1GW | 2028 |
| Anthropic × SpaceXAI Colossus 1 | $1.25B/month, 300MW | Live |
| Google Q2 2026 CapEx | $44.9B in one quarter | Ongoing |
Sources: Meta / BlackRock press release · CNBC / Reuters · Forbes · Related: Nvidia × SK Group $500B deal (July 25) → · Anthropic × SpaceXAI $1.25B/month →