Meta Huntsville data center, Toney, Alabama

Meta's data center campus in north Huntsville near Toney, in Madison County, Alabama, is adding a second phase, and a residents' group wants a moratorium on any new data centers. Construction is underway on two more buildings that will expand the campus to about 2.5 million square feet, and a meeting with city leaders in August 2026 drew questions about its water and power use, noise and jobs.

Meta broke ground in 2018 in the North Huntsville Industrial Park and the data center has been operating since it opened in 2021. Meta says it has invested more than $1.5 billion in Huntsville and that the campus will support more than 300 operational jobs once completed. In December 2021 the city signed a project agreement for a $750 million expansion that city economic development director Shane Davis described as a second campus on 250 acres just north of the first, bringing the site to nearly 600 acres, with 50 new jobs at a required annual wage of $80,000. The city agreed to improve Monroe and Liberty Hill roads and add a traffic signal on Pulaski Pike, and Meta agreed to fund $2.5 million of a $2.8 million sewer extension. "When you take 27.5 mills annually of that investment and it's going to your school system, it's significant," Davis told the City Council, which was told the second campus would generate an extra $8 million to $10 million a year for local schools. Meta halted part of the expansion for a time in December 2022 to redesign it for AI, saying it would "result in a temporary construction pause of a portion of the project while we update our design".

Meta buys its electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority and its water from Huntsville Utilities. "They use about as much as a big retailer might use," said Joe Gehrdes, Huntsville Utilities' director of external affairs. Residents organized by Empowering Women's Causes were not reassured. "There are no regulations that regulate data centers", said the group's president, Lynn Anderson, listing "their water consumption, their power consumption, their noise pollution, quality of life". Naimah Russ said the project had been expected to provide about 100 jobs at an average salary of about $80,000: "We'd like to make sure that they are fulfilling this promise". "We would like a year moratorium on any other data centers that are planned," Anderson said. "We have more questions and really no answers to any of our questions."

North Alabama's other hyperscale data center is Google's in Jackson County, near Bridgeport, which Google said in June it will expand by $1.5 billion in 2026 and 2027. The Tennessee Valley Authority's board approved a new rate structure for data centers in August 2026, effective Oct. 1, under which they are expected to pay about 10% more for power, and new or expanding data centers of more than five megawatts must pay a capacity charge of about $1.5 million per megawatt. State Sen. Sam Givhan said a poll of his Madison County district found 55% opposed more data centers, and that he expects the 2027 Legislature to consider cutting state tax incentives: "It's clear now that they want to come whether they get the incentives or not. So why should we give them incentives?"

Huntsville City Council President Jennie Robinson said: "Honestly, the one hyperscale data center we currently have in Huntsville is plenty." She said any future proposal should be judged under a formal city policy on location, power and water use, noise, infrastructure costs, environmental effects, jobs and benefits to residents. "I am opposed, lock, stock, and barrel, to any additional data centers coming into the city of Huntsville. Period," said Councilmember Bill Kling. As of Sept. 16, Anderson said Robinson had promised a work session on the Meta data center but had not yet scheduled one.