Meta piloting mass timber for data center construction

Meta is testing the use of mass timber to construct more sustainable data centers. 

The social media and technology company will substitute wood for concrete, steel, and other building materials to build data centers with less embodied carbon emissions. Meta says it successfully used mass timber to construct an administrative building at a South Carolina data center campus earlier this year.

The pilot program will continue with the construction of buildings at sites in Wyoming and Alabama.

Meta follows Microsoft in announcing the use of mass timber for data center builds. The software giant said last year that it would use CLT in a hybrid construction strategy to build a pair of lower emissions data centers. These projects will use mass timber along with steel and concrete.