EL PASO, Texas–The data center rising in the desert outside El Paso has the scale of a small city: rows of buildings that will house tens of thousands of servers, power infrastructure that could serve a town of its own, and the kind of tenant that makes landlords nervous and lenders eager. Its landlord is now one of the most powerful asset managers in the world. BlackRock has acquired a majority stake in Meta’s giant El Paso data center, according to El Paso Matters, which reported the deal Aug. 9.
The transaction is the clearest sign yet that the world’s largest money manager is treating AI infrastructure as a core asset class. BlackRock has invested in nuclear power and electricity generation to back the AI boom, and it has built a dedicated infrastructure business to channel capital into data centers, fiber, and power. Taking a majority position in a single hyperscale facility is a larger and more direct commitment.
The structure of the deal follows a pattern that has become common in the industry. Meta, like the other large cloud and internet companies, prefers to own the technology and the software while sharing the enormous capital cost of physical infrastructure with financial partners. BlackRock’s infrastructure funds will hold the majority of the facility’s equity, with Meta retaining a stake and remaining the anchor tenant, according to people familiar with the terms.
The numbers involved are significant. Hyperscale data centers of this size typically cost several billion dollars to build, and the El Paso campus is among the largest in Meta’s portfolio. The deal transfers a substantial portion of that cost to BlackRock’s investors, freeing Meta’s capital for other priorities while securing the computing capacity its AI ambitions require.
The financing structure matters for the broader market. Data centers have become the largest category of private-infrastructure investment, and the pool of capital chasing them has grown as institutional investors seek assets that promise steady, inflation-linked returns. BlackRock’s entry at majority-ownership scale signals that the asset class has matured beyond the pilot investments of a few years ago.
For El Paso, the deal is economic news with political overtones. The data center has brought construction jobs and promises of a permanent workforce to a region that has struggled economically, and local officials have courted the project aggressively. The change in ownership structure does not affect the facility’s operation, but it does shift who ultimately controls the region’s most visible new employer.
The transaction also reflects how the balance of power in AI infrastructure is shifting. Technology companies need more computing capacity than their balance sheets can comfortably finance, and capital providers have stepped in to fill the gap. The result is a new division of labor: tech companies design and operate, financial institutions own, and the returns from the AI boom are shared accordingly.
BlackRock’s strategy has been explicit about this opportunity. The firm’s infrastructure business has raised dedicated funds for digital assets, and its executives have said that AI computing demand will drive trillions of dollars of investment over the coming decade. Deals like El Paso are the concrete expression of that thesis, converting the firm’s fund-raising muscle into physical assets.
The risks are real and familiar to infrastructure investors. Data centers are long-lived assets serving customers whose technology strategies can change, and the AI demand that justifies today’s valuations could cool. Power costs, land availability, and community opposition all shape returns, and a facility like El Paso concentrates those risks in one location.
The deal’s timing reflects the market’s current mood. Interest in AI infrastructure has survived the volatility in AI stocks, and institutional investors have continued to deploy capital into data centers even as they have trimmed positions in AI equities. BlackRock’s majority stake is a bet that the physical buildout will outlast the technology cycle that inspired it.
For Meta, the arrangement is one of several it has struck to fund its infrastructure. The company has said it will spend tens of billions of dollars on data centers this year, and it has used a mix of owned and leased capacity to manage that spending. The El Paso deal follows the template the company established with earlier facilities: retain control of the operations, share the ownership with a patient capital partner.
The transaction’s details, including the price and the exact ownership split, were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the coming months pending customary approvals. People familiar with the terms said the valuation reflects the premium that institutional buyers are paying for scarce, fully contracted AI capacity.
The deeper significance is the direction of capital. The AI boom has created the largest demand for physical infrastructure since the internet buildout of the late 1990s, and the money to build it is increasingly coming from asset managers rather than technology companies’ cash flow. BlackRock’s El Paso stake is one deal; the pattern it represents, of financial capital underwriting the AI buildout, is the story that will shape the industry for the rest of the decade.
