BlackRock Takes 80% Stake, Meta 20% in Joint Venture
“AI Infrastructure Financing Costs Expected to Keep Rising”
Reuters Yonhap News
Meta, which operates Facebook, announced that it will invest in a joint venture with the major asset management firm BlackRock to build an artificial intelligence (AI) data center. As it becomes increasingly difficult to secure funds amid the intensifying competition for AI infrastructure investment, the company is focusing on using external capital to cover construction costs. There are growing concerns that funding rates for AI infrastructure will continue to rise in the future.
On July 28 (local time), Meta announced it had established a joint venture with BlackRock to construct an AI data center in El Paso, Texas. Under the planned arrangement, funds managed by BlackRock will hold an 80% stake in the joint venture, while Meta will own the remaining 20%. Both parties have agreed to cover the $14 billion (approximately 20 trillion won) data center construction cost according to their respective ownership percentages.
Meta will contribute land and equipment valued at $2.3 billion in kind, while BlackRock will inject the remainder of the construction cost in cash. To secure the necessary funding, BlackRock issued bonds worth $12.55 billion at an annual interest rate of 7.5% the day before.
Once completed, Meta will lease the entire data center under a contract. The lease term can be renewed in four-year increments for up to 20 years. The data center will have a computing capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW) and is scheduled to begin full operations in 2028.
In a statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “Building infrastructure for artificial general intelligence is essential to ensuring the benefits of this technology are universally distributed. Through our partnership with BlackRock, we are able to combine our expertise in designing and operating world-class data centers with one of the world’s leading infrastructure investors, allowing us to move faster and at greater scale.”
However, concerns about overheating in AI infrastructure investment are mounting, as Meta is covering most of the data center costs with external capital. According to Bank of America, the volume of newly issued bonds by AI companies from January to early July this year reached $270 billion—nearly double the amount in 2025.
Matt Britzman, senior analyst at UK-based brokerage Hargreaves Lansdown, commented, “Meta is rapidly increasing its investments despite not operating a large-scale cloud business that can sell excess capacity to external clients. As a result, investors continue to raise questions about this level of investment, especially regarding cash flow, future operating costs, and returns.”
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