Meta's Huntsville Data Center Tops $1.5B, Nears 3.5M Sq Ft
Meta says its Huntsville, Alabama campus now exceeds $1.5 billion across two phases, with TVA direct supply and a self-funded substation, but gave no megawatt figure on a media tour.
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Meta's Huntsville data center campus, which the company says has drawn more than $1.5 billion across two phases.
Image: Meta
Source · Press image from the Meta data centers site, used for news reporting.
Meta said its Huntsville, Alabama data center campus has drawn more than $1.5 billion in combined investment across two phases and will total nearly 3.5 million square feet once an expansion finishes, according to 256 Today.
The expansion announced in 2022 is nearly complete and would take the campus to nearly 3.5 million square feet, Meta said, according to 256 Today.
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Meta community engagement lead Henry Thornton hosted local media for a tour and question session at the north Huntsville site, the local outlet reported on Oct. 22. The campus broke ground in 2018 and opened around 2021. An expansion announced in 2022 is nearly complete, and Thornton said there are no current plans for further growth in Huntsville, though that could change.
Jobs and TVA Direct Power Supply
More than 300 full-time Meta employees work at the site, with hundreds of construction workers still on site, 256 Today reported. Peak construction employed more than 1,200 people, and the permanent headcount is expected to stay around 300 after the expansion.
On power, 256 Today reported that Meta is a direct-serve customer of the Tennessee Valley Authority and does not take electricity through Huntsville Utilities. Meta says it matches every megawatt the facility uses with clean and renewable energy and has signed a ratepayer protection pledge meant to keep local bills from rising, Thornton said. Those are company claims. The outlet did not report a megawatt figure for the campus, so its load cannot be sized from this coverage. Meta is also exploring nuclear partnerships, Thornton said.
The site sits in an industrial park, which limited the need for new infrastructure beyond a substation that Meta paid for, according to the report.
Closed-Loop Cooling and Water Use
Thornton said newer sections use closed-loop cooling systems and servers built to tolerate higher temperatures, so cooling is needed less often. Meta has committed to be water positive by 2030, meaning it aims to restore as many gallons to local watersheds as its data centers use. Water arrives through Huntsville Utilities. Thornton described the facility's water use as not much above other industrial facilities, a characterization the report attributes to him and does not verify with volume data.
The tour is a response to local scrutiny of data-center power and water use, and the campus is a useful reference case: a roughly 3.5-million-square-foot, Meta-only site that Meta says relies on a TVA direct supply and a self-funded substation rather than new utility build-out. Without a published megawatt number, the facility cannot be compared with the gigawatt-scale campuses now being planned. Voltgrid News reported earlier on Amazon, Meta and Google's pledges to data center host communities.
What Meta Has Not Confirmed
Meta has not published the campus's IT or utility power in the coverage read, nor water volumes. The no-bill-increase and water-positive statements are company commitments, not independent findings. In April 2025 a local TV station measured between 35 and 50 decibels less than 200 yards from one building, 256 Today noted, which is the only independent measurement in the report.
