Marsh Advises Meta and BlackRock on $14B Texas Data Center Venture
Meta disclosed that Marsh provided project-risk analysis and insurance services for its planned El Paso data center venture with BlackRock, while also acting as a technical adviser to the BlackRock funds. The parties committed about $14 billion in development costs for a 1-gigawatt campus, with capacity expected to begin coming online in 2028. The transaction was still expected to close when Meta announced it July 28.
Marsh advised both sides of Meta and BlackRock's planned El Paso data center venture, according to Meta's July 28 announcement. Marsh provided Meta with project-risk analysis and insurance services, and also acted as a technical adviser to the BlackRock funds alongside Charles River Associates and Turner & Townsend.
The parties committed to fund approximately $14 billion in total development costs for buildings and long-lived power, cooling and connectivity infrastructure. The campus is under construction and is designed for 1 gigawatt of compute capacity, with the venture expecting to begin bringing capacity online in 2028. Meta said the transaction was expected to close in the coming days.
How the venture is structured
Funds managed by BlackRock will own 80% of the venture and Meta will retain 20%. At financial close, Meta is expected to contribute land and construction-in-progress assets valued at about $2.3 billion, while BlackRock is expected to contribute roughly $4.9 billion in cash. Part of BlackRock's investment will be funded with proceeds from $12.5 billion in debt financing.
Meta will manage construction, administration and property operations and will be the campus's initial sole occupant. The company said its investment in the El Paso project exceeds $10 billion, with more than 4,000 construction jobs at peak and 300 operational jobs once complete.
Why the risk work matters
Reinsurance News reported that Marsh's role covered risks spanning construction, energy supply, technology requirements, financing and long-term operations. Insurance Business also highlighted the broker's work on both sides of the transaction and the residual-value guarantees Meta will provide under the lease structure.
For AI infrastructure teams, the deal shows why announced compute capacity cannot be separated from project finance and delivery risk. Gigawatt-scale campuses depend on coordinated construction, power, cooling, connectivity, insurance and financing long before accelerators serve production workloads.
The 2028 target is therefore a capacity plan rather than current available compute. Teams evaluating future supply should track financial close, construction milestones, power delivery and phased commissioning rather than treating the headline gigawatt figure as immediately usable capacity.
Key Points
- 1Marsh provided risk and insurance services to Meta and served as a technical adviser to BlackRock's funds on the same planned data center venture.
- 2Meta and BlackRock committed about $14 billion in development costs for a 1-gigawatt El Paso campus expected to begin bringing capacity online in 2028.
- 3The announced gigawatt is future planned capacity; financial close, construction, power delivery and commissioning remain material dependencies.
Scoring Rationale
The transaction documents risk and insurance work around a large planned AI infrastructure build and exposes the financing and delivery dependencies behind future compute capacity. It is relevant to infrastructure planners but does not introduce a new model, chip or developer platform.
Sources
Primary source and supporting public references used for this report.
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