Meta Platforms announces Mesa data center expansion
Online social media giant Meta Platforms, parent of Facebook, announced an expansion of its Mesa Data Center, with plans to add three new buildings that will increase the campus to five buildings with more than 2.5 million square feet of space.
This expansion announced Wednesday will raise Meta’s investment in Arizona to more than $1 billion and eventually will be home to more than 200 jobs, along with 2,000 construction workers, an increase from 500 construction jobs announced previously.
Plans for the campus were unveiled last August. The complex is scheduled for completion in 2026.
Data centers house servers and other equipment that store and process data for the company’s more than 1 billion global users.
“They’re the backbone of our business,” said David Williams, Meta’s community development manager. The Mesa complex will be one of 17 domestic data centers in operation or under construction, along with four in other nations.
Sensitive to water, energy needs
The parent of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other online services vowed to make sustainability a key feature of the campus.
“This will be one of the most water and energy efficient data centers in the world,” Williams said. “Water is a concern and something we take very seriously.”
Meta has agreed to finance several external water projects to restore at least as much water as the facility will use. As one example, the company is funding construction of a mile-long pipeline to replace an open ditch near Oak Creek in northern Arizona. The pipeline project will save water, partly by reducing leakage and evaporation, said Dan Stellar, state director for the Nature Conservancy.
Once online, the campus will use 100% renewable energy, mainly solar power, and will use 60% less water than the typical data center.
Meanwhile, rain water will be collected, and water will recycle several times before its ultimately discharged for agricultural irrigation. Outside air will cool servers and other equipment during about half of the year.
Meta has committed to restoring more water than it will consume at the data center. The three water projects in which the company has invested will restore more than 200 million gallons of water annually combined in the Colorado River and Salt River basins. So far, Meta said it has restored more than 25 million gallons in Arizona.
Jobs and education support
The permanent jobs likely to be filled eventually include data center technicians, facility operations personnel, various engineers and information technology specialists. Nearly two dozen current open positions can be found at metacareers.com, under Mesa.
Meta employs nearly 72,000 people
globally. The company, based in Menlo Park, California, earned a profit of $39.4 billion in 2021 on $117.9 billion in revenue.
Mesa Mayor John Giles predicted the data center will help drive economic development near the campus on Elliot Road just east of Ellsworth Road. He predicted suppliers and other businesses will locate nearby, without citing examples. Mesa’s business friendly environment and shovel-ready infrastructure helped to land the data center, he said.
Giles also thanked Meta for announcing a $50,000 grant to Mesa College Promise, a program that supports Mesa residents graduating from local high schools to attend Mesa Community College. This program helps students meet the costs of college and provides internship opportunities, adviser guidance and other assistance.