Meta Expects Harder Data Center Builds After Midterms

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Meta expects data center projects to get harder after the Democratic gains in the midterm elections. President Dina Powell McCormick said the industry has to show communities what they get in return.

Why the buildings still pay off

Meta has pinned its hopes on AI products, especially its consumer agent Muse. The agent has 10 million users today, and Meta wants it to scale far beyond that into a business serving billions.

If that does not happen, Meta believes the data centers will not have been for nothing, because the compute itself has value. "We're getting calls every day to lease that compute," she said, adding that Meta sees a path to monetization one way or another.

The company has built data centers for 20 years, she said, because its social networking products need a lot of compute. It now has them in 23 states. Five are planned at 1 gigawatt or more, one of them in Texas.

The deal Meta offers a town

Communities want a data center only when it benefits them in some way, she said. Meta described its approach to closing local deals. Meta covers its own power costs and sends any tax surplus from the sites to teachers and first responders. Hiring stays local, and the project needs backing from both parties, among other things.

She did not claim the work is getting easier. "I think it's going to be harder," she said. It has been hard already, she added, but it is becoming clear which models work, and states want those.

She expects future projects to get closer scrutiny, and to be judged on whether local constituents really want them.

A backlash about more than buildings

Powell McCormick spoke on Wednesday at the WSJ Tech conference. She said the backlash against data centers was on the ballot this election season, and that it reaches beyond data centers.

In her view, a data center is the visible piece of AI: people can point to one near them and say they do not want it. She said the real issue is how people feel about AI overall.

She said her own industry has "not done as good a job as we needed to explain the benefits of these investments."

Meta's plan is to demonstrate value, both from the local sites and from the technology. She named a cure for cancer and access to education as the stakes, and said Mark Zuckerberg is betting on humans more than machines.

Source: TechCrunch