Today, we’re breaking ground on our newest data center: a state-of-the-art 1GW campus in Lebanon, Indiana. This facility represents an investment of over $10 billion in data center infrastructure and the surrounding community, one of our largest infrastructure investments to date.
As with all our data centers, we’re committed to having a positive impact on the communities in which we operate. That’s why we’re already working with local partners to address critical needs in the Boone County Community through grants programs, multi-year donations for energy affordability, and ongoing investments in public infrastructure that will benefit the area.
Built to Deliver 1GW
This new data center is our second site in Indiana, and is designed to deliver 1GW of capacity once operational. As AI advances and compute demands continue to grow, gigawatt sites like this one will be critical to advancing the technology that supports our core business as well as our AI ambitions. Building at this scale creates the flexibility to support both goals while enabling technology with higher bandwidth, lower latency, and improved reliability.
Investing in the Lebanon Community
At the peak of construction, this data center is expected to support more than 4,000 construction jobs, and approximately 300 operational jobs. We’re also launching a new Boone County-wide workforce development program through the Boone County Career Collaborative. This program will support career exploration and work-based learning for students across three school districts. By connecting schools with local employers it will ensure students have consistent, meaningful exposure to new skills and career paths.
With all our data centers, we strive to be good neighbors. We pay the full costs for energy used by our data centers and work closely with utilities to plan for our energy needs years in advance to ensure residents aren’t negatively impacted. To help support local families in need, we’re providing $1 million each year for 20 years to the Boone REMC Community Fund to provide direct assistance with energy bills, and funding emergency water utility assistance through The Caring Center. We also pay the full cost of water and wastewater service required to support our data centers. Over the course of this project, Meta will make investments of more than $120 million, toward critical water infrastructure in Lebanon, as well as other public infrastructure improvements including roads, transmission lines and utility upgrades.
In addition to these investments, grants, and donations, we’ll bring our annual Community Action Grants program to Boone County in coming months. The program provides direct funding to schools, nonprofits, and community organizations in data center communities.
Prioritizing Sustainability
In line with our commitments to clean energy and sustainable growth, we’re matching 100% of our new data center’s energy use with clean energy, and the data center will achieve LEED Gold certification once operational. The data center will use a water-efficient closed-loop, liquid-cooled system that recirculates the same water and will use zero water for a majority of the year.
We aim to be good water stewards wherever we operate, which is why we’re restoring 100% of the water we consume in Lebanon to local watersheds. We’re also partnering with Arable to provide irrigation technology to independent farmers in Indiana’s Upper Wabash River Basin. This project will restore 200 million gallons of water a year for ten years and reduce costs for farmers. In addition, we’re revitalizing a section of the Deer Creek stream, which will improve the ecological health of the wetland corridor by expanding vegetation in the area and creating a better habitat for pollinators.
We look forward to bringing this data center online and supporting the growth of Lebanon, Indiana.
