Turner: Powering Meta’s Green Expansion in AI Compute

Meta has selected Turner Construction Company as one of the contractors for its US$10bn data centre campus in Lebanon, Indiana.

The project marks one of the company's largest infrastructure investments to date as it scales up capacity to support artificial intelligence workloads.

The project recently broke ground and represents a significant expansion of the computing infrastructure required to power Meta's AI ambitions alongside its core social media platforms.

Gigawatt-scale capacity for AI computing

The state-of-the-art campus will span approximately four million square feet and deliver 1GW of capacity, designed specifically to handle both AI workloads and Meta's core business operations.

As AI models grow increasingly complex and demand for high-performance computing accelerates, gigawatt-scale facilities could become the new standard for tech companies investing in advanced machine learning capabilities.

The campus will provide the computational power needed to train and deploy large language models and other AI systems that require massive parallel processing capabilities.

The infrastructure will support the intensive computational requirements of training next-generation AI models, which can require weeks or months of continuous processing across thousands of specialised chips.

At peak construction, the project is expected to support more than 4,000 construction jobs, with approximately 300 operational positions once the facility becomes fully functional.

Water-efficient cooling systems

The data centre will be built to achieve LEED Gold certification and will deploy a water-efficient, closed-loop liquid cooling system that recirculates water and uses zero water for a majority of the year.

This cooling approach could prove critical as AI workloads generate significantly more heat than traditional computing tasks.

The closed-loop system represents a significant advancement in data centre cooling technology, minimising water consumption while maintaining optimal operating temperatures for high-density computing equipment.

By recirculating cooling water within the system, the facility can dramatically reduce its environmental footprint compared to traditional cooling methods.

Meta has committed that 100% of the facility's energy use will be matched with clean and renewable energy, addressing concerns about the environmental impact of power-intensive AI training and inference operations.

The company will pay the full cost for energy, water and wastewater services used by the data centre to ensure local residents are not negatively impacted.

This approach to sustainable infrastructure reflects growing industry awareness of the environmental challenges posed by AI computing, which requires substantially more power and cooling than conventional data centre workloads.

The facility's design prioritises both performance and environmental responsibility.

Flexible infrastructure design

The Lebanon data centre has been designed with flexibility to handle the evolving demands of AI computing.

Meta is working with local partners to address critical needs in the Boone County community through grants programmes, including a donation of US$1m fund, each year for 20 years to the Boone REMC Community Fund.

As well as this, it is funding emergency water utility assistance through The Caring Centre.

This is on top of the ongoing investments exceeding US$120m towards critical water infrastructure in Lebanon, as well as other public infrastructure improvements including roads, transmission lines and utility upgrades.

Meta's annual Community Action Grants programme will also extend to Boone County non-profits, schools and organisations in coming months.

Water stewardship efforts include restoring 100% of the water consumed in Lebanon to local watersheds.

By partnering with Arable on this, it will provide irrigation technology that could save 200 million gallons of water annually for 10 years to independent farmers in Indiana's Upper Wabash River Basin and revitalise a section of the Deer Creek stream to improve ecological health.

"The scale of the Lebanon Data Centre reflects the growing demand for high-performance infrastructure," says Ben Kaplan, Managing Director at Turner Construction Company.

"We look forward to working alongside Meta and applying our integrated services and deep mission-critical experience to deliver this data centre safely, sustainably and efficiently whilst supporting the long-term growth of the Lebanon community."

Once complete, the Lebanon Data Centre will stand as one of the largest infrastructure investments in Indiana's history, positioning the state as an emerging hub for AI infrastructure and high-performance computing facilities.