Meta is preparing to spend an eye-popping $600 billion in the United States by 2028, with the bulk of that money going into new and expanded data centers built specifically for AI workloads. That number is so large it borders on infrastructure policy territory. The company is pitching this as a commitment to American jobs, American innovation, and American communities, but the impact of a buildout on this scale is going to be more complicated than Meta’s talking points suggest.
Data centers have become the backbone of Meta’s AI ambitions, including its work on what it calls “personal superintelligence.” Thousands of servers running around the clock need enormous amounts of electricity and water. Meta says it is directly funding grid improvements and adding 15 gigawatts of new energy capacity across the country. The company also claims its designs use less water than typical data centers and that it plans to become water positive by 2030. These are good promises. Whether they hold up once hundreds of new facilities are online is another question entirely.
There is no denying that the economic benefits feel very real on the ground. Meta says its data center projects have already supported more than 30,000 skilled trade jobs and 5,000 long-term operational jobs. Steel fabrication, electrical work, HVAC installation, and fiber network projects are all getting steady business. Cities that have seen manufacturing or industrial decline often welcome Meta with enthusiasm because the jobs are local, well paid, and fairly durable while construction lasts.
But when a town’s future becomes tied to the infrastructure needs of a single private company, the balance of power shifts. Local officials find themselves depending on Meta’s investment cycles, its energy contracts, and its long-term strategic direction. If corporate priorities change, the jobs move. And while Meta highlights community investment programs, school grants, and local infrastructure upgrades, those efforts also blur the line between civic responsibility and corporate influence over public life.
AI requires scale, and scale requires land, power, and water. The United States is about to see a lot more of its landscape reshaped to support this. The public conversation has not caught up yet. For now, Meta is being allowed to handle a role that would once have been handled through federal planning: deciding where the next wave of strategic infrastructure actually gets built.
