Meta Kuna data center, Kuna, Idaho

Meta's data center in Kuna, a small city in Ada County, Idaho, south of Boise, opened in September 2026 and is now fully operational, serving traffic on Meta's platforms worldwide. Meta describes it as a facility of more than 750,000 square feet near Pleasant Valley housing its latest AI data center technology, and its global economic development director Bradley Davis called it "the culmination of 1.2 billion in capital investment into the state of Idaho." Construction began in 2022 and went through several phases, including a redesign of the cooling system. How much it will draw from the grid is not clear, but the Idaho Public Utilities Commission said earlier in 2026 that it expects the Kuna data center to become Idaho Power's single biggest customer as soon as it starts.

The project was announced in February 2022 and never went to a public hearing. The land was already zoned for industrial use and already annexed into the city, so no rezoning and no public comment period were required. Meta negotiated under the code name Project Peregrine, and the Idaho Department of Commerce grants companies anonymity during negotiations to protect their strategic information and planned decisions from direct market competition. When the city announced who the company was, officials were sent more than 50 pages of emails from angry residents.

Kuna resident Mychal Wilson asked what the project would do to the water the area depends on: "What is that going to do to the water that we need for crops and for animals and for local landscaping?" She also worried the facility would hurt local businesses, and said decisions taken "in shadow usually are done because they're shameful. Or they're immoral." Most of the Treasure Valley was rated abnormally dry at the time, with drought across much of Idaho.

Mayor Joe Stear, who led the negotiations, said "Meta has been pretty good to work with" and called it one of the biggest projects in the state. Meta's initial investment was about $800 million for a 960,000 square foot building, to be certified LEED Gold. The company offered a new water treatment facility, funding for public services, about 1,200 construction posts, about 100 permanent ones and a commitment to use local vendors and suppliers.

On the water, Meta says its data centers use 80 percent less than average facilities and need no additional water rights. The company has pledged to be water positive across its operations by 2030, restoring more water than it consumes to local watersheds, and says it is identifying restoration projects in the Treasure Valley.

The building uses a closed-loop cooling system, which Davis said lets it use "virtually no water for the majority of the year." Because the site needed no rezoning, no Kuna vote ever decided it; the public body that now matters most is the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, which regulates how Idaho Power serves its new largest customer.