This is a source-attributed discovery row. It can help you find a place and its citations; it is not a DataCenterData finding that the facility is distinct or currently operating.
Reported geography
Source-reported location for Meta Altoona Data Center Campus.
Approximate source coordinates; this is not a parcel claim. Nearby source points are combined into one accessible target that opens this exact map scope. View these exact rows on the interactive map →
Source row snapshot
- Operator as published
- Meta
- Address and locality
- Altoona · Polk County · Iowa
- Official metro area
- Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA
- Source-reported status
- operational
- Provider facility type
- data center
- Reported capacity
- Operational: 350 MW (source-reported; boundary not independently verified; MW measure not stated by provider)
- Source freshness
- 14 September 2026
- Location precision
- approximate (provider label: exact; the provider's own note describes an approximate location)
- Compute Atlas confidence label
- confirmed (provider's classification; not a DataCenterData check)
- Stable directory ID
dcd-dir-000925
Reported details
Source-reported by Compute Atlas; not independently verified by DataCenterData. Provider wording is kept; long provider notes are shortened and marked …; unknown is not zero; none of these values is totaled, ranked or compared.
- Electric utility
- MidAmerican Energy
- Power source
- Wind
- Cooling
- Evaporative
- Announced jobs
- 400 permanent
- Community response
- Provider label: supported
- AI-use label (provider)
- confirmed
- Announced
- 2013
Incentives reported by the source
Whether each incentive was approved, awarded or received is not established.
- City of Altoona 20-year property-tax waiver (Building 5 / Siculus LLC, ~1M sq ft) - Meta instead pays ~$3/sq ft (~$3M/yr), roughly a 40% discount; IEDA High Quality Jobs program · City of Altoona, IA · 2019 Open cited source →
- Iowa data-center sales & use tax exemption (Iowa Code sec. 423.3(95)) on equipment, cooling, and electricity - eligibility met; per-campus dollar value undisclosed · State of Iowa · 2013 Open cited source →
Provider notes
Energy. Served by MidAmerican Energy; Meta matches load with long-term Iowa wind PPAs, including the 225 MW Great Pathfinder Wind project (Boone & Hamilton Counties, Apex Clean Energy, ~2022) tied to Altoona. MidAmerican delivered ~100% renewable to its Iowa customers in 2022. No on-site generation.
Water. Evaporative cooling with outside-air economization ~93% of the year (Meta design). Altoona utility director Daniel Scott: the campus 'can use up to a million gallons of water a day, one fifth of what the city can produce' - a permit peak/ceiling, not a measured average; a city agreement caps Meta at up to 16% of Altoona's supply. Water drawn from the Jordan Aquifer. No verified operational daily-use figure has been disclosed.
Community. Altoona Mayor Dean O'Connor, initially opposed, became supportive as the campus grew; Meta donated two water towers to the city and has given $4M+ locally; LEED Gold buildings. Resident-level concerns (water share, electricity rates, noise/light) are documented but no organized opposition or litigation was found.
These reviews flag conflicting scope, inconsistent source text or support that has not been established. A withheld value may appear in the explanation, but is not displayed as an established field. The upstream row remains attributed under Sources.
- Announced investment: The source note describes ‘more than $2.5 billion’ as a cumulative figure across seven expansions since 2013 and says it was meant to be omitted as an investment value.
What the source record says
Operational since 2013; 5M+ sq ft after seven expansions — Meta's largest cloud campus. Meta's engineering blog documents Altoona as a GenAI infrastructure / LLaMA training site. INVESTMENT: 'more than $2.5 billion' is a cumulative multi-year figure across all expansions (in notes, not investmentUsd). 400+ on-site operations staff is a cumulative daily figure (in notes). ~350 MW per third-party index. Coordinates are the Altoona town centroid. Meta cites a cumulative capital investment of 'more than $2.5 billion' across seven Altoona expansions since 2013 (Data Center Frontier); the 2019 Building 5 phase was ~$400M (IEDA). Both are cumulative/single-phase figures -> investmentUsd omitted.
Any MW value is reproduced as source-reported context. Its measurement boundary is not established consistently enough for comparison. Unknown is not zero.
Status history supplied by the source
- 2013 · source-reported operational
Meta (Facebook) began building the Altoona campus in 2013; now its largest cloud campus at 5M+ sq ft after a seventh expansion; hosts GenAI/LLaMA compute
Sources and attribution
These sources are listed for the whole row. Unless a figure links to its own source, the provider does not mark which one gave it, so a figure may not appear in every source.
- Meta Adds More Data Centers in Iowa, Pushing Campus to 5 Million SF · Data Center Frontier
- Building Meta's GenAI Infrastructure · Engineering at Meta
- Meta signs 225MW wind PPA in Iowa · Data Center Dynamics
- Facebook receives tax incentive to build fifth Altoona data center · Construction Dive
- How much water do Iowa data centers use · KDSM17 (CBS Iowa)
- Trip to Iowa gives officials close look at Meta data center · Warren County Record
- Meta Data Centers blog — Meta Announces New Expansion to Altoona Campus
- Meta's Altoona Data Center (site info sheet) · Meta
Adapted from Compute Atlas by Edward Kubiak, edition 1.34.1, under CC BY 4.0. Upstream ID meta-altoona-ia. Filtered to data-center records in the 50 U.S. states; selected fields normalized for search and display; DataCenterData directory IDs added. Some locations in this layer are reported by the provider as derived from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL, https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) and Epoch AI (CC BY 4.0).
Compute Atlas 1.34.1 with retained prior rows and publication holds. This is a DataCenterData composite, not an unmodified publisher edition. This row uses the captured source from 1.34.1, source as of 2026-10-14T20:40:52.293Z.
State or local registry record
What a state or local government record says naming this company in this city (no street is given in the record). The record is cited, not republished. It does not establish that a data center is operating, its capacity, or its owner or operator unless the record says that role. It is not added to the counts on this page.
Reviewed company relationship and city only. The state report explicitly names Siculus, Inc. (Facebook) in Altoona. This historical company-and-city association does not equate Siculus, Inc. with later Siculus LLC. No street or particular building is established; this is additional government evidence, not a new facility.
Siculus, Inc. (Facebook)
- Publishing agency
- Iowa Economic Development Authority
- Record type
- state incentive award list
- Evidence scope
- The 04/23/2013 award names Siculus, Inc. (Facebook) in Altoona. This historical name-and-city association identifies no street, particular building, operating date or scope of later campus expansions.
- Named in the record
- Siculus, Inc. (Facebook)
- Location precision
- Altoona only
- Award date
- 04/23/2013 (as printed)
What this record does not establish
- That a permit, certification, tax status, or application means an operating data center.
- Current IT capacity, utility load, or generation capacity.
- Who operates the site. A company named in the record is not the operator unless the record says so.
- Who owns the site.
- Cooling redundancy. Mentioned equipment is not a design rating.
- Whether the record covers one building, a campus, or a suite, beyond the unit label the record itself uses.
That does not mean the row is wrong, and it does not mean no reviewed record exists for the same place. A link is added only when an identifier or source establishes the match.
Recorded information
What this page records, grouped by topic, with the source's units and qualifications. Company-reported values stay labeled as company-reported. Related listings are shown separately.
Licensed directory listing dcd-dir-000925
Licensed directory row.
Provider notes and the source narrative are printed on this page and are not repeated here.
Identity and relationships
- Provider facility type: data center
Provider facility type.
- AI-use label (provider): confirmed
Compute Atlas classification, not a DataCenterData finding.
Location and precision
- Altoona, IA · Polk (Approximate location)
Roles
- Operator: Meta
Operator label as published by the provider; no parent company is inferred.
Lifecycle
- Source-stated status: source-reported operational
Provider status label; not a DataCenterData finding that the facility is operating.
- Announced: 2013
Provider-reported announcement date.
- Status history: 2013 · source-reported operational
Status history supplied by the source.
Power capacity
- Reported capacity: Operational: 350 MW (source-reported; boundary not independently verified; MW measure not stated by provider)
Reproduced as the page prints it; not ranked or totaled; unknown is not zero.
- Electric utility: MidAmerican Energy
Utility as named by the provider.
- Power source: Wind
Provider label.
Cooling, water, PUE and WUE
- Cooling: Evaporative
Provider label.
Permits, incentives, jobs and proceedings
- Announced jobs: 400 permanent
Announced figures; whether they cover one building, a campus or a multi-phase program is not established.
- Community response: Provider label: supported
Compute Atlas characterization, not a DataCenterData assessment.
- Incentive reported by the source: City of Altoona 20-year property-tax waiver (Building 5 / Siculus LLC, ~1M sq ft) - Meta instead pays ~$3/sq ft (~$3M/yr), roughly a 40% discount; IEDA High Quality Jobs program · City of Altoona, IA · 2019
Whether the incentive was approved, awarded or received is not established.
- Incentive reported by the source: Iowa data-center sales & use tax exemption (Iowa Code sec. 423.3(95)) on equipment, cooling, and electricity - eligibility met; per-campus dollar value undisclosed · State of Iowa · 2013
Whether the incentive was approved, awarded or received is not established.
Sources, dates, limitations and corrections
- Provider update date: 2026-09-14
Provider update date is not a DataCenterData verification date.
Not yet recorded here: Area, acreage and buildings · Connectivity · Services · Certifications and design ratings · Rack density · Availability · Specification links and contact.
Licensed values: adapted from Compute Atlas by Edward Kubiak under CC BY 4.0. Source-reported and not independently verified.
Update this profile with a public source. The request includes topics needing more information; this does not mean the facility lacks them. Corrections and additions are reviewed before publication.