NEWS & ANALYSIS | POWER & INFRASTRUCTURE
Meta and BlackRock have created a $14 billion venture to build an AI data-centre campus in Texas. The deal shows how private capital is spreading the cost of the AI buildout. It does not answer who ultimately pays for power, water, tax concessions and stranded infrastructure.
By Andrew McDonald · Immortal AI
The artificial-intelligence boom is often described as a race between models. Its physical reality looks different.
It requires land, concrete, servers, cooling systems, transmission lines, substations, water, roads and large amounts of finance. Before an AI system produces a single answer, someone must build the infrastructure that allows it to exist.
On 28 July 2026, Meta and BlackRock announced a venture to develop and own a data-centre campus in El Paso, Texas. The project is expected to cost about $14 billion.
BlackRock-managed funds will own 80 per cent. Meta will retain 20 per cent and contribute land and construction assets valued at about $2.3 billion. BlackRock will contribute about $4.9 billion in cash. Much of the structure will be financed through approximately $12.5 billion of debt.
This is private finance at extraordinary scale. But “privately financed” does not necessarily mean every cost stays private.
Immortal AI’s earlier analysis examined the Meta-BlackRock deal itself. This article follows the costs beyond the financing structure, into the grids, tax systems and communities that host the infrastructure.
The first cheque is not the final burden
The developer, operator, technology company, lender and investor may write the first cheques for a data centre.
Other costs can travel through different systems. A utility may build new generation, transmission or distribution assets. A water authority may expand capacity. A council may provide roads, emergency services or planning staff. Governments may offer tax abatements or exemptions. Residents may experience noise, land-use conflict or pressure on scarce resources.
Whether those costs reach households and taxpayers depends on contracts, tariffs, regulation and local conditions.
It would be wrong to assume that every data centre raises household bills. It would be equally wrong to assume that a private project cannot shift risk onto the public.
The real question is whether the people who benefit from the project are required to pay the costs it causes.
The electricity scale is no longer marginal
A Berkeley Lab report estimated that US data centres used 176 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, equal to 4.4 per cent of national electricity consumption.
Its scenarios place 2028 demand between 325 and 580 terawatt-hours, or about 6.7 to 12 per cent of US electricity use.
Those figures are estimates, not guarantees. They depend on accelerator shipments, utilisation, cooling, efficiency and the pace at which proposed facilities connect.
The range itself is important. Utilities can be asked to plan expensive infrastructure years before final demand is known. If a project is delayed, reduced or cancelled after new assets are committed, someone still has to pay for what was built.
A strong large-load tariff can place that risk on the applicant through upfront study payments, minimum bills, long contracts, credit support and exit charges. A weak arrangement can leave other customers carrying part of the stranded cost.
Jobs are real. So is the difference between construction and operations
Data centres create economic activity.
Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission estimated that the industry supported about 74,000 jobs and $9.1 billion in annual gross domestic product in the state during the period it studied. Most estimated employment came from construction rather than continuing operations.
Several industry representatives told the commission that a typical 250,000-square-foot facility may employ around 50 full-time workers, about half contractors. That is an industry-reported benchmark, not a universal average.
The distinction matters because public announcements often combine temporary construction work, indirect employment and permanent site jobs. All three can be valuable. They are not interchangeable.
A community committing land, power, water or tax support needs to know which benefits remain after construction crews leave.
Tax concessions are public spending through the tax code
Governments often compete for data centres by exempting expensive servers, electrical equipment and other purchases from sales or use taxes.
That can attract investment. It can also create a large public cost.
Virginia’s legislative analysts reported that the state’s data-centre sales and use tax exemption accounted for $1.7 billion, or 42 per cent, of economic-development incentive spending over the decade examined in its 2024 report.
That figure does not prove the exemption was bad policy. The correct comparison is what activity, tax revenue and strategic benefit occurred because of the concession, and what would have happened without it.
But the cost must remain visible. A tax exemption is not free because no agency writes a cheque. It is revenue the public chooses not to collect.
The same discipline should apply to property-tax abatements, discounted public land, infrastructure grants and special utility arrangements.
Communities can receive large benefits
The evidence is not one-sided.
Where data-centre equipment and property are taxable, local revenue can be enormous. Mature clusters can fund schools, services and infrastructure at a scale few other land uses match.
Construction can create well-paid work. Operations can provide skilled jobs and local contracts. Large customers can support new generation and spread fixed utility costs when tariffs are designed properly. Reclaimed water and less water-intensive cooling can reduce pressure on drinking supplies.
These are genuine benefits. They are also location-specific.
A result in a mature Virginia cluster cannot simply be applied to an arid Texas community, a constrained power market or a town offering a different tax structure.
Who receives the upside?
The Meta-BlackRock venture makes the ownership chain unusually visible.
Meta will gain access to computing capacity. BlackRock-managed funds will own most of the venture. Lenders will receive interest. Contractors and suppliers will be paid to build it. The operator and technology tenant may create long-term revenue from the facility.
The host community may receive wages, contracts, taxes and community investments.
But gross project value does not show how much benefit remains locally after tax concessions, infrastructure costs and resource impacts are counted. Nor does a large capital figure tell us who bears the risk if technology changes, demand falls or the tenant leaves.
Layered ownership can spread financial risk among sophisticated investors. It can also make public accountability harder because the landowner, operator, tenant, utility and financier may be different entities with different contracts.
The community test
A government should require a project-specific answer to five questions.
1. Will the project pay the full cost of the electricity, transmission, water and public services it causes?
2. Are permanent local jobs, taxes and procurement benefits stated separately from temporary construction and modelled indirect effects?
3. Would the project proceed without the proposed tax concessions, and can those concessions be recovered if promises are not met?
4. Are power, water, land and amenity impacts within local limits under realistic drought, heat and growth scenarios?
5. Who pays if the project is delayed, reduced, cancelled or abandoned?
If those questions cannot be answered before approval, the uncertainty does not disappear. It is transferred.
AI may be global. Its infrastructure is local.
The economic value created by AI may flow through products and markets around the world. The physical burden lands somewhere specific.
A substation is built in one service area. Water is drawn from one system. Noise reaches particular homes. A tax exemption affects a particular budget. A cancelled load leaves assets on a particular grid.
The Meta-BlackRock agreement shows that private markets are developing increasingly sophisticated ways to finance AI infrastructure. Communities need equally sophisticated ways to protect the public interest.
The standard should be simple: project-caused costs should be assigned to the project, public support should produce an auditable public return, and local people should not be asked to insure private upside without knowing it.
Principal sources
- Meta Platforms and BlackRock: El Paso data-centre venture announcement
- Reuters: Meta and BlackRock partner on $14 billion data-centre venture
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report
- Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission: Data Centers in Virginia
- Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission: Economic Development Incentives 2024
Editorial disclosure: This article was developed with assistance from artificial intelligence. Its sources, claims and conclusions were reviewed by Immortal AI’s editor before publication.
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