Last year, New Mexico secured one of the most coveted economic development projects in the country when Los Lunas was chosen to be home to Facebook’s massive new data center, the social media giant’s seventh data hub in the U.S.
This year, in the midst of construction on the $250-million Los Lunas facility (which is scheduled to open in 2018), Facebook doubled down on its investment: the company announced it would add a second, 400,000-square-foot building to the data center complex in NM, bringing the total square footage of the complex to 980,000 and the total value of the project to $500 million.
The project is expected to employ more than 1,000 construction workers during the building phase and create more than 100 permanent new jobs. The second building at the site is expected to be completed in 2020.
Both Facebook buildings will be entirely powered by solar energy. In July, Albuquerque-based Affordable Solar started construction of three solar farms to meet the green-energy needs of the data center’s first building. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared that the Los Lunas data center complex will be the most advanced, energy-efficient facility of its type in the world.
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