Facebook needs no introduction.
According to statista.com, in 2023, Facebook was the largest social media platform with 3.03 billion monthly active users worldwide.
Facebook generates 4 new petabytes (1 million gigabytes) of data per day, sees 100 million hours of daily video watch time, generates 4 million likes every minute, uploads more than 250 billion photos, and ingests 500+ terabytes of data each day.
The company has a large and complex infrastructure that uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) for some of its backend servers. Plus, it maintains 18 global data centers, with 14 located in the United States, to store Facebook data.
Five-Building Campus, $800 Million Investment
According to Construction Dive, a new 960,000 square foot Facebook data center is being constructed in Mesa, Arizona worth $800 million, which will become the company’s first facility in Arizona. The project is expected to support an estimated 100 long-term operational jobs and 1,500 temporary construction jobs. At the height of construction, the number of skilled tradespeople onsite could peak at 2,000 workers.
The Mesa Data Center, first announced in August 2021, is a greenfield development of a five-building campus encompassing over 2.5 million square feet of data center and administrative space for tech giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg. Meta purchased the 396 acres site for $123.2 million.
The Mesa Data Center will be built on the southeast corner of Elliot and Ellsworth roads. Apple already has a massive facility located at Elliot and Signal Butte, and Google plans to build a new data center on Elliot west of Sossaman. Numerous other cloud storage firms are located in Arizona’s Elliot Road Tech Corridor.
DPR Construction Selected as General Contractor
Meta selected California-based contractor DPR Construction to build this $800 million data center. “Building the campus will use 12,000 tons of steel, more than the Eiffel Tower, and will incorporate over 600 miles of framing studs and 700 acres of drywall. Roughly 2,000 people are working on the project, which is expected to be completed in 2026,” according to a social media post from Mesa’s Mayor John Giles.
DPR Construction plans to hire drywall contractors, concrete contractors, general carpenters, laborers, acoustical ceiling installers, caulking installers, waterproofing installers, steel strut installers, door, frame and hardware installers, and many other tradespeople to complete construction.
The new data center will power Facebook, making digital communication and connection possible. The facility will house routers, switches, servers, storage systems, and other equipment to keep applications running and data secure for Facebook's 3.03 billion monthly active users, allowing them to interact, exchange messages, and share photos.
Telecom data centers are going through a similar transformation to handle high data volume and low latency needs. The average full-scale data center is 100,000 square feet in size and runs around 100,000 servers, which are essentially powerful computers. Servers are often stored in racks, which is like a cabinet for multiple servers.
Prioritizing Sustainable Energy and Water Conservation
Meta is also prioritizing sustainable energy and water conservation for the Mesa data center.
Three new Arizona solar projects from the Salt River Project will deliver a combined 500 megawatts of power. The first, a 100-megawatt West Line Solar, came online in fall 2022, followed by 200-megawatt plants Randolph Solar Park and Valley Farms Solar, in 2023. All three solar plants are located in Pinal County. The new Facebook facility in Mesa expects to use about 450 megawatts of power. These solar projects will allow this data center to operate with 100% renewable energy.
Water conservation is also an important initiative because the Arizona groundwater supply can’t support the new data centers.
According to Business Insider, “These huge data centers use incredible amounts of water because the computing gear inside gets really hot when it processes all those videos and mobile app sessions. Water is often used to cool the equipment.”
Rachel Peterson, VP of Infrastructure at Facebook said, “the Mesa facility will use 60% less water than the average data center, with water recycled several times before it's discharged for agricultural use.”
Facebooks says it will not draw water rights from the city of Mesa. It has invested in three Arizona projects that will restore over 200 million gallons of water per year in the Colorado River and Salt River basins. One project is repairing and upgrading a tribal irrigation system in northern Arizona in exchange for leaving some of the tribe's water allotment in Lake Mead. The three water conservation projects will replace more water than the data center will consume.
Peterson added, “We are thrilled to be breaking ground on our newest data center. Mesa stood out as a great location for a number of reasons. It has great access to infrastructure, opportunities for renewable energy development, strong talent for both construction and operations, and great community partners.”
Sandra Watson, President and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority said, “Arizona has become one of the leading destinations for data centers anywhere in the world, and with the addition of Facebook, we demonstrate once again our premier attractiveness for technology. We look forward to partnering with Facebook to prioritize sustainability and conservation as we add to Arizona’s already thriving technology ecosystem.”
Facebook Data Center Locations
According to Data Center Frontier, Facebook has invested more than $16 billion in building and operating its data centers in the United States. The company developed a new website that maps the locations of the company's 18 data centers, (plus new data centers which broke ground recently) that will span 40 million square feet of data center space, along with 52 solar power arrays and 15 wind farms providing renewable energy to support its online operations, and 9 water conservation projects.
Facebook Data Center Locations:
- Odense Data Center, Southern Denmark, Denmark
- Clonee Data Center, Leinster, Ireland
- Singapore Data Center, Tanjong Kling, Singapore
- Luleå Data Center, Norrbotten County, Sweden
- Huntsville Data Center, Alabama, USA
- Montgomery Data Center, Alabama, USA (2024 break ground)
- Mesa Data Center, Arizona, USA (2021 break ground)
- Newton Data Center, Georgia, USA
- Kuna Data Center, Idaho, USA (2022 break ground)
- Jeffersonville Data Center, Indiana, USA (2024 break ground)
- DeKalb Data Center, Illinois, USA
- Altoona Data Center, Iowa, USA
- Rosemount Data Center, Minnesota, USA (2024 break ground)
- Kansas City Data Center, Missouri, USA (2022 break ground)
- Papillion Data Center, Nebraska, USA
- Los Luna Data Center, New Mexico, USA
- Forest City Data Center, North Carolina, USA
- New Albany Data Center, Ohio, USA
- Prineville Data Center, Oregon, USA
- Gallatin Data Center, Tennessee, USA
- Fort Worth Data Center, Texas, USA
- Temple Data Center, Texas, USA (2022 break ground)
- Eagle Mountain Data Center, Utah, USA
- Henrico Data Center, Virginia, USA
Tom Furlong, President of Infrastructure, Data Centers at Meta, says “We have 48 active buildings and another 47 buildings under construction. So, we’re going to have more than 70 buildings in the near future.”
Facebook is not alone, many companies are pouring billions of dollars into expanding their data center infrastructure to meet demand for their digital services.
How Can GPRS Help?
GPRS delivers a comprehensive array of services to data centers for subsurface damage prevention, existing condition documentation, and management of construction and facility projects.
Our offerings in concrete scanning, utility locating, video pipe inspection, and leak detection help prevent subsurface damage during excavation, or when drilling or slicing through concrete. Leveraging cutting-edge tools like ground penetrating radar (GPR), electromagnetic (EM) locating, and remote-operated sewer pipe inspection rovers, our SIM and NASSCO-certified Project Managers (PMs) equip you with an in-depth view of your site’s subsurface structures.
For a clear depiction of above-ground conditions and to document our PMs’ findings in utility locating and concrete scanning, our 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry services deliver 2-4 mm-accurate data useful for both project design and future operation and maintenance (O&M) tasks. Furthermore, our internal Mapping & Modeling Department can tailor this data into any required format and software.
GPRS delivers accurate as-built data to the Renewable Energy sector. We have completed hundreds of wind (utility-scale) and solar projects in all stages of project development and construction. With the recent expansion of the EV-charging network, we’ve worked with major companies such as Tesla, Rivian, ChargePoint, EVgo, and Electrify America to provide above-ground architectural, structural and MEP as-builts and BIM models, plus underground utility locates using the most reliable scanning technology available.
We deliver up-to-date and accurate construction as-builts, existing condition drawings, utility maps, 2D CAD drawings, 3D BIM models, 3D mesh models, digital twins, point clouds, updated floorplans (FLRPLN), and more for construction design, prefabrication, clash detection, facility modifications, and asset management. An accurate record of existing conditions can expedite project planning and decision making for data center construction.
All GPRS data, drawings, maps, and models are delivered via SiteMap®, our industry-leading infrastructure software platform. And the best part is you get a complimentary SiteMap® Personal Subscription with every GPRS service.
What can we help you visualize?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the process of constructing a data center?
According to dgtlinfra.com, the entire process, which includes engineering, materials procurement, civil works, equipment installation, and commissioning tests, often takes anywhere from 1.5 to 3 years. At the height of construction, it's not unusual for such projects to employ over 1,000 construction workers on-site temporarily.
Why put a data center in Mesa?
Sandra Watson, President and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority, said Arizona is now a leading destination for data centers. The Phoenix region is booming with data center construction due to its low natural disaster risk. Several other companies operate or are developing data centers in east Mesa including Apple, Google, EdgeCore, Cyrus One, Digital Realty, NTT/Raging Wire, and Edgeconnex, according to an article by Data Centre Dynamics, an industry publication.
