Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents
Meta may have one found one way to slash its massive data center bill: tents.
Just when you thought the AI data center boom couldnβt get any crazier, Meta has gone and built data centers in tents. The strategy appears to borrow in equal parts from Tesla and xAI.
In a bid to cut construction time in half, Meta has built six tents β or βrapid deployment structuresβ as the company describes them βΒ outside of New Albany, Ohio, according to Michael Thomas, founder of Cleanview, which tracks data center deployments.
Thomasβ findings arenβt totally new. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to the Information last year about his plan to use weatherproof tents to house the companyβs multi-gigawatt data centers.
But Thomasβ images and review of local permits showcase the speed of construction and scale of the project. According to city permits reviewed by Thomas, Meta started building five 125,000-square-foot tents between April and June. The satellite images he shared in his post on X show the structures have all been built.
The use of tents is reminiscent of those Tesla built in the parking lot of its Fremont, California factory when it was rushing to roll out the Model 3. The site is also powered by 200 megawatts of modular gas turbines nearby, a tactic popularized by competitor xAI.
Inside the tents, AI chips, likely worth billions of dollars, will go about their business.
Meta is building dozens of massive tents at campuses across the US, sticking billions of dollars of chips inside, and powering them with off-grid turbines.
β Michael Thomas (@curious_founder) June 4, 2026
The AI race has officially entered its Mad Max phase.
Over the last month, I reviewed hundreds of documents and satellite⦠pic.twitter.com/U8yDZUlEO0
The tents have sprung up as Meta has struggled to release its AI models to developers. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal found that Metaβs latest model, Muse Spark, is complete, but the APIs that developers rely on to access it have been repeatedly delayed.
Meta has said it intends to spend up to $145 billion on data centers and other capital expenditures. Wall Street hasnβt liked the sound of that, with Metaβs stock trading down 5% this year. Putting AI chips in tents is one way to trim the bill.Β
TechCrunch has reached out to Meta for comment and will update this article if it responds.
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Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MITβs Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected].
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