Meta Platforms (META) has broken ground on its artificial intelligence data center in Beaver Dam, Wis., marking it as its 30th global data center, the Facebook creator announced today.
Beaver Dam is located about 50 miles northeast of Madison. Meta is underwriting about $200M in energy infrastructure investments to power the center. It is working with Alliant Energy (LNT) to supply the electricity.
Meta also plans to outfit the data center with dry-cooling technology once it is operational to reduce water usage. Dry cooling utilizes a closed-loop system, circulating water from a server room, where it is heated up and delivered to a device where it is cooled down by outside air before being pumped back into a server room. Although this technique uses less water and power than cooling towers, it is typically more expensive to install and is less effective in hot climates.
“Once operational, the Beaver Dam data center will be optimized for our expanding AI workloads, supporting our growing fleet of industry-leading AI infrastructure, and setting us up to deliver the future of AI innovation,” Meta said.
Meta is in the process of a spending frenzy related to AI infrastructure as it plans to spend $600B through 2028 in the U.S.