Forest City Data Center

08/14/2026

When we host our Community Action Grants ceremony, we keep it local! 🎉

This year's event was made possible by incredible small businesses right here in our community:

🎈 The Balloonista — bringing the celebration to life with stunning balloon displays
🍽️ Parcel 191 — serving up delicious local catering
💐 Bostic Florist — adding beautiful floral touches
📷 Steep Creek Photography – for capturing every detail

Supporting local businesses is part of who we are. From our grants program to our events, we're committed to investing in the people and places that make Rutherford County special. Thank you for helping us celebrate our 2026 grantees! 🙌

07/30/2026

North Carolina, this one's close to home. 🕶️

Meta just announced nearly $2 million in AI Glasses Impact Grants for 30+ organizations across 18 states — and two are right here in North Carolina.

Agerpoint is giving farmers real-time, hands-free crop health intelligence to help secure our food supply. And through its Senior Valor initiative, TraVolve Wellness is helping rural veterans and older adults navigate daily life with more confidence and independence.

As your neighbors at the Forest City Data Center, we're proud to see North Carolina organizations putting this technology to work.

Meet the full cohort → meta.com/community/ai-glasses-community-stories

We've awarded AI Glasses Impact Grants to 30 organizations across the US using Meta AI glasses to help people work safer, learn faster, and live more independently.

06/11/2026

America needs hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople — electricians, mechanics, fiber technicians and more — to build the AI infrastructure powering our future. That's why Meta just launched America's Workforce Academy, the largest private-sector commitment to the skilled trades with a job guarantee in American history.

This cost-free program supports all participants while they learn, and every graduate is guaranteed a job on a Meta partner's construction site. No experience needed. It's a $115 million first year investment — now piloting in four states, with plans to grow.

Learn more: https://www.meta.com/AmericasWorkforceAcademy/

05/11/2026

Big news in clean energy ☀️🔋

Last week, Meta announced two partnerships pushing the boundaries of what's possible for powering AI infrastructure.

We're working with Overview Energy to bring solar power from space to Earth—satellites collecting sunlight around the clock and beaming it to solar farms on the ground. And we're partnering with Noon Energy on ultra-long-duration storage that can hold clean energy for days, not just hours.

These are the kinds of investments that help strengthen the grid and support reliable power for our data center operations here and across the country.

Learn more about these innovative energy solutions 👇

https://about.fb.com/news/2026/04/powering-ai-strengthening-the-grid-space-solar-energy-and-long-duration-storage/

04/30/2026

This week, we celebrated our 2026 Meta Data Center Community Action Grant recipients at the Forest City Data Center. It was a joy to bring together this year’s grant recipients, community partners, Meta team members, and local leaders!

Through our Data Center Community Action Grants program, Meta provides funding for nonprofits and schools — addressing critical community needs by putting technology to use for community benefit, enabling people to build strong, sustainable communities, improving local STEAM education — to support the long-term vitality of Cleveland, Henderson, McDowell, Rutherford, and Polk Counties. Learn more on this year’s projects:

Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland County: To inspire environmental stewardship through hands-on gardening projects that apply scientific measurement and engineering to sustainable food production.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Rutherford NC: To establish a technology-rich SmartLab that provides youth with hands-on, project-based experiences in robotics, coding and engineering design.

Cleveland County Arts Council: To transform traditional art spaces into digital arts hubs by providing iPads and interactive displays for advanced AI-integrated art instruction.

East Rutherford Middle School: To integrate entrepreneurship and STEAM skills through a student-led coffee shop utilizing digital marketing, inventory software and 3D-designed branding.

Explore Forest City: To modernize the Forest City Clubhouse with advanced audiovisual technology that enhances public accessibility, visibility and inclusive community programming.

Foothills Community School: To foster student-led scientific exploration and laboratory mastery through participation in regional and state-level Science Olympiad competitions.

Henderson County Education Foundation: To expand equitable access to science kits, robotics competitions, and community field trips for students in underfunded elementary and middle schools.

9496 LYNK Robotics: To provide rural students with professional mentorship and industry-grade fabrication tools that bridge the gap to high-demand engineering careers.

Rutherford Early College High School (REaCH): To launch a centralized AI hub equipped with GPU-accelerated workstations for training machine learning models and analyzing autonomous drone data.

Norris Library Foundation: To eliminate financial and language barriers to science education by providing free community access to telescopes, microscopes and bilingual STEAM kits.

REIGN (Rutherford Education, Innovation & Growth Network): To catalyze a regional AI ecosystem by training instructors, launching literacy workshops and integrating AI readiness into local startup development.

Rutherford County Schools Education Foundation: To accelerate district-wide AI literacy and robotics participation through student-led summer enrichment camps and modernized high school engineering labs.

Rutherford Outdoor Coalition: To empower the next generation of river stewards through hands-on water quality testing and watershed restoration efforts focused on environmental resilience.

Rutherfordton Elementary: To ignite a love for electrical engineering by integrating Snap Circuit kits into hands-on collaborative lessons for students across all primary grade levels.

STEM West: To immerse rural and underserved students in local STEM career pathways through interactive rotations with industry partners and college faculty.

Our thanks to Rutherford County Commissioner Donnie Haulk, Town of Forest City, Town of Spindale, Town of Rutherford, Rutherford County Economic Development, Rutherford Chamber and Rutherford County Schools for joining us.

04/28/2026

🌎🧊 April is Earth month — and we're proud to share a closer look at the water restoration work happening in Los Lunas.

Water is a shared and vital resource — and at Meta, our goal is to become water positive in 2030. That means restoring more water than we consume in our operations, while partnering with local communities to boost supply, enhance quality, and protect ecosystems.

In this video, our Water Program leads share what drives this work — and how projects near the Rio Grande are helping move toward that goal.

Watch the video to hear directly from the team 👇

04/22/2026

Yesterday, we announced that we’re breaking ground on our 28th U.S. Meta data center in Tulsa, Oklahoma! When coming to a new community, Meta is committed to making a positive impact by investing in local schools and nonprofits, partnering on local water restoration projects, adding energy to the grid and supporting local jobs to build and operate the data center.

We're building the future of human connection and once operational, the Tulsa Data Center will be part of the highly advanced infrastructure that helps connect billions of people around the world.

We are proud to call Oklahoma home – follow Tulsa Data Center for local updates

04/20/2026

We're excited to share a new opportunity for people across the United States. 🎉

Meta has partnered with CBRE to launch LevelUp Fiber Technician Pathway — a free, four-week training program that prepares people for high-demand fiber technician careers operated by CBRE. No prior experience is required.

Whether you're a recent graduate, exploring a career change, or looking for a pathway into the skilled trades — this program is built for you.

Learn more 👉 https://datacenters.atmeta.com/levelup/

04/14/2026

Big news for North Carolina! 🎉

Construction is officially underway on Corning's optical cable manufacturing expansion in Hickory, N.C. — part of a multiyear agreement between Corning and Meta worth up to $6 billion to support the buildout of Meta Data Centers in the U.S.

By sourcing fiber optic cables from Corning — one of the nation's top fiber optic manufacturers — we're supporting domestic advanced manufacturing, creating jobs, and helping ensure the U.S. remains competitive in the global AI race.

Together, Meta and Corning are strengthening American data center infrastructure and driving AI innovation. We're proud that North Carolina continues to be at the heart of it all.

Learn more:

Construction is officially underway on a major expansion of optical cable manufacturing in Hickory, North Carolina — a milestone in our partnership with Corning to help build the next generation of AI data centers using technology developed and manufactured right here in the United States. In Janu...

04/07/2026

Our Forest City Data Center team came together for an awesome meetup: The Big Solve! 🎉

The week was all about connecting and collaborating — and they brought the competitive spirit! The team hosted a social featuring a puzzle-themed trivia game where teams went head-to-head 🧠💡

This is what community looks like at our Forest City Data Center!