Meta Pauses Data Center Builds in Texas, Alabama
Social media giant says it needs to redesign facilities in shift to AI.
Meta, which is in the midst of a cost-cutting binge that has seen it downsize its office footprint in several cities, now is pausing construction on two huge data center projects and canceling other hyperscale facilities.
However, the social media giant isn’t characterizing these moves as part of an effort to reduce costs: Meta says it must redesign the data centers to deploy unspecified “artificial intelligence infrastructure” as part of an overall shift of resources to AI, which the company now identifies as a high growth area.
The Facebook parent has announced it is stopping construction on a 900K SF data center in Temple, TX and on a 2.5M SF hyperscale campus in Huntsville, AL. Last week, the tech giant announced it is canceling two of three data centers it was planning to build in Odense, Denmark in what the company’s head of European communications called a shift to a “strategic investment in artificial intelligence.”
“We’ve made some tough calls this year to stop doing some work, so we can maintain our focus on those things we feel are most important,” Meta CEO Andrew Bosworth said in a blog post this week.
Reality Labs, a Meta unit that is developing technologies that are believed to be precursors for the company’s all-out push to develop its version of a metaverse, is heavily dependent on advanced AI for its Meta Reality platform.
According to a report in The Register, Meta is focusing future deployments around AI infrastructure to improve engagement with ads and user-generated content.
Earlier this month, Meta declined an option to renew leases encompassing 250K SF at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards when they expire in 2024. Meta will vacate its space at 30 and 55 Hudson Yards, two skyscrapers owned by Related Cos. in the massive West Side development.
When it was in a much more expansive mode, Meta agreed in 2019 to rent more than 1.5M SF in three new towers at Hudson Yards, with most of the space earmarked for 50 Hudson Yards.
The tech giant also leases about 730K SF at the redeveloped Farley Building—formerly NYC’s central post office—across from Penn Station.
In July, Meta said it was halting its plans to further build out its space at 50 Hudson Yards, a build out it was expecting to complete next year. The company also offered a small amount of that space for sublease.