Meta Friends Virginia
Summary
- In 2017, Meta began looking for a site for its eighth East Coast data center.
- They soon landed on Virginia, which offered world-class tech talent, a shovel-ready location, affordable construction, access to renewable energy, and much more.
- In late 2017, Meta announced plans to invest $1 billion to establish their new data center in Henrico County.
- That same year, Meta invested an additional $1 billion to construct three new buildings on the campus, which was completed in 2023.
With over three billion users and counting, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has become the most popular social media platform in the world. Meta also owns popular apps Instagram and WhatsApp and streams live video. To meet the growing customer demand, Meta regularly evaluates the need to increase capacity while keeping its energy footprint low.
Enter Virginia in 2017, when Meta set out to find the right location for its eighth East Coast data center.
A Growing Need
Virginia hosts the world’s largest data center market, which benefits from densely packed fiber backbones, a stable economic environment, affordable and abundant electricity with many renewable power options, and competitive construction costs. With the highest concentration of tech talent and the third-largest tech industry workforce in the U.S., Virginia has become a sought-after hub for high-tech talent and investment.
In short, exactly what Meta was looking for.
A Powerful Digital Ecosystem
Henrico County’s White Oak Technology Park, a high-tech, shovel-ready manufacturing center, is conveniently located at the intersection of Interstates 295 and 64 and could easily meet Meta’ scale and digital speed requirements. White Oak also houses the QTS Richmond Network Access Point (NAP) and DE-CIX Richmond, offering access to the MAREA, BRUSA, SAEx1, and Dunant subsea cables and providing a gateway to the largest interconnection ecosystem in North America.
The company also prioritized being able to source clean, 100% renewable energy for its data center. Dominion Energy and Meta worked together to create a renewable energy tariff called Schedule RF, which allows Meta and other large energy users to meet needs through the addition of renewable energy sources. All renewable energy projects served under this tariff must be completed in Virginia.
A Growing Investment
In October 2017, Meta announced plans to invest $750 million to establish a 970,000-square-foot data center in White Oak that employs 200 Virginians in roles ranging from technical operations and electricians to logistics and security. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars funded the construction of multiple solar facilities to service the Henrico Data Center with 100% renewable energy.
Site work on the $1 billion campus began in February 2018. That September, Meta announced an additional investment of $1 billion to construct three new 500,000-square-foot buildings. The first phase of the Henrico Data Center campus went online in August 2020 and was completed in 2023.
Virginia offered Meta the full package: infrastructure with room to grow, fast-tracked permitting, access to renewable energy, a strategic location, and a talented pool of highly-skilled employees that continue to meet and exceed the evolving needs of the technology industry.
Virginia has been a home to the internet since the tech industry’s earliest days. And thanks to Henrico County’s robust infrastructure and attractive business climate for data center development, we could not be more thrilled to locate our next data center here…Henrico County and the Commonwealth of Virginia has it all.
Rachel Peterson, Vice President for Data Center Strategy, Meta
Meta's Henrico Data Center by the numbers
initial Meta investment in Henrico Data Center
new jobs created by the investment
Additional Meta investment in Henrico Data Center
Meet your
industry partners
Vince leads VEDP’s data center strategy, helping companies evaluate opportunities across Virginia and connecting complex infrastructure projects to the right sites and partners.
Emily serves as the Director of Software and Cybersecurity, leading strategic initiatives to position the Commonwealth as a national leader in technology, cybersecurity, and AI innovation. She cultivates collaboration across industries, higher education, as well as public and private-sector stakeholders to strengthen Virginia’s statewide tech ecosystems.
