Meta's $1.2B Kuna, Idaho Data Center Goes Live

Meta’s data center campus in Kuna, Idaho started serving live traffic this week, closing out a $1.2 billion build that Meta and the state first announced in February 2022. Two buildings totaling more than 750,000 square feet are now online, running Meta’s latest AI hardware. It is Meta’s 28th U.S. data center and its first in Idaho.

Why it matters

For developers pitching hyperscale sites, Kuna is the delivery benchmark every competing package now gets measured against. The power and water terms are what closed this deal: Meta backed the site with three new solar projects adding 645 megawatts of renewable capacity to Idaho Power’s grid, structured so Meta cannot draw more than 110% of its contracted energy needs, and the campus is expected to become Idaho Power’s single biggest customer the moment it ramps, according to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. On water, Meta built a closed-loop cooling system that needs one fill of roughly 200,000 gallons, good for seven to 10 years, versus the millions of gallons a day conventional data centers consume, and Meta has pledged to be “water positive” across its operations by 2030. Meta also paid for a new water and wastewater plant that it is handing over to the city to own and operate. Those commitments, firm renewable power and a near-zero ongoing water draw, are becoming the price of entry for any site-selection package chasing a hyperscale tenant in a water-stressed or grid-constrained market.

The numbers

The project’s footprint changed as it moved from pitch to delivery. Meta’s 2022 announcement described an $800 million facility of more than 960,000 square feet, with about $50 million for water and sewer infrastructure and construction expected to run through 2025. What is live today is $1.2 billion and 750,000 square feet across two buildings. Idaho Press reports the project paused for more than a year in 2022 so Meta could redesign around the closed-loop water system before restarting construction in 2023, which accounts for most of the slip past the original schedule. Meta says the campus currently employs more than 75 people toward a targeted 100 operational jobs, after a construction peak the company puts at roughly 1,600 tradespeople.

What’s next

Meta says its energy use here will be matched by 100% clean and renewable power once the associated solar projects are fully online, and the water system’s real test comes over its first full year of operation. For developers, the number worth tracking is the four-and-a-half-year gap between announcement and live traffic. That is the real timeline to budget against next-generation AI campuses, not the shorter windows still showing up in site-selection pitches. More national data center and power coverage.