Meta Building New $800M AI Data Center in Alabama, Second in State

Facebook parent company Meta is building an $800 million data center in Alabama to bolster its AI capabilities and expand its data infrastructure.

The new 715,000 square feet site will be built in Montgomery and will be powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

It will be the Meta’s 20th data center in the U.S. and its second in Alabama. The company previously built a center three miles away in Huntsville.

The Montgomery site is expected to go online in 2026.

At an event with company officials, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said the latest investment increases Meta's total commitment to the southern state to $1.5 billion.

“Each day, millions of people around the world use Meta’s products and the next-generation Alabama data center in Montgomery will soon help keep the company’s popular platforms running smoothly,” Ivey said. “Meta is putting down roots in another great location in Sweet Home Alabama and we’re committed to helping the company grow and prosper here.”

Meta’s Alabama expansion comes as the company looks to expand its AI services.

The new infrastructure will support increased workloads from new services like Meta AI, its ChatGPT-like chatbot on social media apps like Facebook and WhatsApp.

Meta broke ground on its first Alabama data center in 2018 and went online three years later.

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The company routinely extended the site but opted to pause its latest expansion at the end of 2022 as it pivoted away from the metaverse to refocus efforts on AI.

Meta’s new data center follows Omdia research that recognized the Facebook parent company as one of Nvidia's top customers as it snapped up thousands of GPUs to train and run inference on its AI models.

“We are thrilled to announce our newest data center will be located in Montgomery,” said Brad Davis, Meta’s director of community and economic development. “The city, and our specific location, offers great access to infrastructure and renewable energy, a strong pull of talent and most importantly, an amazing set of community partners.”