Meta Announces $1 Billion AI Data Center in Tulsa with Water Sustainability Goals

Facebook’s parent company has publicly committed to building a $1 billion artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled data center in Tulsa, Oklahoma which will include tens of millions in investment to upgrade local water use infrastructure.

Meta said the two million square-foot Tulsa Data Center campus will connect billions of people globally to AI computation. AI data centers, which soon could grow to 1 GW or more of energy use per facility, also consume tremendous volumes of water needed for cooling the hyperactive graphic processing units and supercomputing chips used in AI.

To minimize this impact, Meta promises to partner with PhyTech on water restoration projects which could restore more water than the AI plant consumes, according to the company statement. The 10-year collaboration with PhyTech’s plant-sensor technology aims for saving more than 50 million gallons of water per year.

“Building with sustainability in mind is important to us. Meta prioritizes water stewardship, and we have a global goal to be water positive in 2030. That means we will restore more water than we consume to local watersheds,” reads the company announcement about the Tulsa Data Center plans.

Fortis Construction will lead the building of the AI data center. Meta also plans to install clean energy capacity—up to 1.5 GW—either on-site or co-located. The company did not save what kind of energy generation was planned.

PhyTech uses its technology within a variety of crops in the agriculture sector. It focuses on satellite and field-level digital management tools to reduce water use in operations.