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BlackRock / BlackRock-managed funds

BlackRock-managed funds join Meta El Paso data-center venture

July 28, 2026 primary Manager profile

Summary: Meta announced a strategic venture with BlackRock to develop and own a data-center campus in El Paso, Texas. Meta's release says funds managed by BlackRock will own 80% of the venture, Meta will retain 20%, the parties will fund their pro rata shares of about $14 billion in total development costs, and the venture expects to begin bringing capacity online in 2028.

Why it matters: The update may matter to due-diligence readers as a public signal of BlackRock-managed capital participating in large-scale AI-infrastructure and data-center development, while the source does not support conclusions about project economics, fund exposure, credit quality, expected returns, or investment merit.

9AT filing context: Use only narrow BlackRock/GIP registered-adviser platform identity context from the data-analyst handoff. Omit delayed 13F and Form 5500 context; they do not explain a private data-center venture.

Summary

Meta announced a strategic venture with BlackRock to develop and own a data-center campus in El Paso, Texas. Meta’s investor-relations release says the campus is under construction, will have 1 gigawatt of compute capacity, and is expected to begin bringing capacity online in 2028.

The same Meta source says funds managed by BlackRock will own 80% of the venture, while Meta will retain 20%. The parties have committed to fund their pro rata share of approximately $14 billion in total development costs for the campus buildings and long-lived power, cooling, and connectivity infrastructure.

This draft treats Meta’s investor-relations page, Meta Newsroom, and PRNewswire as the controlling source package. It does not state that the transaction has already closed, identify specific BlackRock funds, or infer investment merit, fund exposure, expected returns, or project-quality conclusions.

Why it matters

For due-diligence readers, the useful signal is that BlackRock-managed capital is publicly associated with a large AI-infrastructure and data-center development venture where Meta is the project counterparty, service provider, and expected initial sole occupant. The announcement may help readers monitor how large adviser and infrastructure platforms are participating in hyperscaler-linked compute-capacity buildouts.

The signal is bounded by the public sources. Meta’s release supports the announced ownership split, development-cost framing, expected closing timing, capacity target, expected 2028 online timing, lease structure, and Meta’s role. It does not establish which BlackRock-managed funds have exposure, validate project economics, describe financing quality, forecast AI demand, assess energy or water impacts, or support any recommendation about BlackRock, Meta, or related securities.

Source notes

9AT filing context

Public adviser/profile context reviewed by 9AT maps the BlackRock lane to BLACKROCK FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, INC, a registered-adviser platform identity associated with blackrock.com. The data-analyst handoff reported about $8.15 trillion in ADV regulatory AUM/profile scale, about $584.4 billion in total private-fund gross asset value in the returned profile, 757 private funds, 13 related or child filing companies, 10,975 employees, 2,031 advisory employees, and a latest profile submission date of July 9, 2026.

The same handoff separately maps Global Infrastructure Partners to GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT, LLC, a registered-adviser identity associated with global-infra.com and identified in the returned search result as GIP, A PART OF BLACKROCK. The handoff reported about $142.2 billion in ADV regulatory AUM/profile scale, about $73.6 billion in total private-fund gross asset value, 177 private funds, 437 employees, 239 advisory employees, and a latest profile submission date of May 13, 2026.

That filing context is useful only for broad platform identity and scale. It does not establish the El Paso venture terms, identify participating funds, validate the announced ownership percentages, explain financing quality, assess lease or residual-value-guarantee risk, support energy or water conclusions, or imply investment performance.

No 13F or Form 5500 context is recommended. The data-analyst handoff noted that a delayed public-equity 13F snapshot for BlackRock would not explain a private AI-infrastructure/data-center venture, and the item is not about a U.S. employee-benefit plan, plan sponsor, pension mandate, or retirement-plan filing.

What to watch

Watch for Meta, BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, HPS Investment Partners, financing parties, regulators, or project documents to disclose transaction closing, specific fund or vehicle participation, financing terms, construction milestones, lease mechanics, power and cooling arrangements, residual-value-guarantee treatment, and any changes to the expected 2028 capacity timeline.

Until those details are public, coverage should remain at the level of the source-backed announcement: Meta and BlackRock announced a venture for the El Paso data-center campus, funds managed by BlackRock are expected to own 80%, Meta is expected to retain 20%, and filing context is limited to broad registered-adviser platform identity.

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