Simply if you thought the AI knowledge middle increase couldn’t get any crazier, Meta has gone and constructed knowledge facilities in tents. The technique seems to borrow in equal components from Tesla and xAI.
In a bid to chop the time to completion in half, Meta has constructed six tents — or “speedy deployment buildings” as the corporate describes them — outdoors of New Albany, Ohio, in keeping with Michael Thomas, founding father of Cleanview, which tracks knowledge middle deployments.
Thomas’ discovery isn’t completely new. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to the Information final 12 months about his plan to make use of weatherproof tents to deal with the corporate’s multi-gigawatt knowledge facilities.
However Thomas’ photos and overview of native permits showcase the velocity of building and scale of the undertaking. In keeping with metropolis permits reviewed by Thomas, Meta began constructing 5 125,000-square-foot tents between April and June 2026. The satellite tv for pc photos he shared in his submit on X, present the buildings have all been constructed.
The usage of tents is reminiscent to those who Tesla constructed within the parking zone of its Fremont, California manufacturing facility when it was speeding to roll out the Mannequin 3. Close by, 200 megawatts of modular gas turbines present energy to the positioning, a tactic extensively deployed by competitor xAI.
Contained in the tents, AI chips, possible price billions of {dollars}, will go about their enterprise.
The tents have sprung up as Meta has struggled to launch its AI fashions to builders. A current report within the Wall Avenue Journal stated that, whereas its newest mannequin, Muse Spark, is full, the APIs that builders depend on to entry LLMs from their purposes has been repeatedly delayed.
Meta has stated it intends to spend as much as $145 billion on knowledge facilities and different capital expenditures. Wall Avenue hasn’t preferred the sounds of that, with Meta’s inventory buying and selling down 5% this 12 months. Placing AI chips in tents is one solution to trim the invoice.
TechCrunch has reached out to Meta for remark and can replace this text if it responds.
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