Dive brief:
- Shovels hit the ground once again as Kansas City, Missouri general contractor JE Dunn resumed construction of a $800 million meta data center project in Temple, Texas. The the project was put on hiatus in December 2022 when Meta he said he was changing the design of the complex.
- Now, the design has evolved and is specifically designed to support the next generation of artificial intelligence systems, according to Meta. The firm believes the new design will be 31% less expensive and take half the time to build than the previous approach, it said. Datacenter Dynamics industry publication.
- Along with JE Dunn, other construction companies working on the project include Rosendin Electric, Brandt Cos., Peabody General Contractors, Alamo Structural Steel, Perry and Perry Builders, CentiMark Corp. and BakerTriangle, Meta said. The technology company expects more than 1,200 construction workers to be on site at the peak of construction.
Diving knowledge:
Amid concerns earlier this year about job cuts in the technology sector, the resumption of the Temple data center project serves as confirmation of the optimism expressed by construction sources that remained. optimistic about data center construction.
Meta, along with other U.S.-based tech companies, announced widespread job cuts in November 2022. This bleeding in the tech sector raised concerns that construction activity could slow giant data center projects technologies such as Meta, Twitter and Amazon.
But these concerns have been largely unfounded. Even during the height of this tech industry layoff period, Data center construction activity remained robust.
The 900,000-square-foot facility is part of Meta’s goal to expand its data center infrastructure by 2022. For example, the tech giant also poured $800 million into a facility in Kansas City , Missouri, as well as an additional 800 million in a Kuna. , Idaho data center last year.
According to the company, these projects pushed Meta’s total investment in U.S. data center construction and operations to over $16 billion.
The project teams originally linked completion date for 2025. Meta now expects the project to be completed in 2026, according to a statement shared with Construction Dive.
