Meta Project Seafox data center, El Paso, Texas

Meta's Project Seafox data center campus, at 7001 Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue in Northeast El Paso, has been under construction since Meta broke ground in October 2025. It is being built through Meta's subsidiary Wurldwide LLC and is set to deliver 1,000 megawatts of computing power, about 1 gigawatt, starting in 2028. A state filing for 12 more buildings and five substations puts the full campus at about 25.9 million square feet on roughly 600 acres, with work continuing to February 2029.

Meta raised its planned investment to $10 billion in March 2026, then formed a roughly $14 billion joint venture in which BlackRock funds hold 80 percent, putting in $4.9 billion in cash against $2.3 billion in land and construction costs from Meta. The city and county had already granted an 80 percent break on property taxes for decades and $12.5 million for road repairs around the site.

"I can say clearly, if I were voting on this today, I wouldn't support it," said El Paso City Rep. Chris Canales, who represents District 8 and voted for the tax break in 2023. "I wish we had voted differently in 2023, and I'm sorry for my role in it," he said.

Part of the campus's power will come from 813 small gas-fired generators built onsite, totaling 366 megawatts. El Paso Electric says Meta will pay the full cost of that power for a bridge period of one to five years, after which the utility will fold the cost into rates paid by all customers. The generators would emit about 117 metric tons of nitrogen oxides a year, a smog-forming pollutant, according to figures from their maker, Enchanted Rock.

Meta says more than 4,000 workers will build the campus and it will hire 300 full-time employees, though the city's tax deal requires only 50. El Paso Electric has asked the Public Utility Commission of Texas for permission to build the gas plant; its ruling will decide who ultimately pays for the power.