$1B Meta Project Anthem in Tulsa Needs 10 Low Voltage Systems

Meta's $1 billion Project Anthem data center in East Tulsa requires ten low voltage systems and an estimated $40 million in LV work. It is also, unusually, a project where the owner is paying to train the fiber optic and structured cabling technicians who will build it.

Project Overview

Project data shows Meta broke ground on April 21, 2026 on an AI-optimized data center at Fair Oaks Innovation Park in East Tulsa, near East 11th Street and the Creek Turnpike. The facility spans more than 2 million square feet on a roughly 340-acre campus inside the 2,000-acre park, where it is the first anchor tenant. Fortis Construction is the general contractor. Completion is targeted for 2028.

The investment exceeds $1 billion. It is Meta's first data center in Oklahoma, its 28th in the United States, and its 32nd globally. Construction is expected to peak at more than 1,000 workers, with roughly 100 permanent operational roles once the building is live.

Meta is also carrying costs that often land on a municipality. The company committed $25 million to local road and water system improvements, is paying the full cost of its electricity from Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and has said it will contribute hundreds of millions of dollars toward grid infrastructure including substations and transmission lines. Meta has more than 1,500 MW of clean energy projects under contract in Oklahoma and pays full water and wastewater service costs, with a water-positive target for 2030.

Project	Project Anthem — Meta Tulsa AI Data Center
Location	Fair Oaks Innovation Park, East Tulsa, OK
Investment	More than $1 billion
Scale	2+ million sq ft on ~340 acres
General Contractor	Fortis Construction
Utility	Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO)
Status	Under construction — broke ground April 21, 2026
Completion	2028
LV Score	9/10

The Part Every Low Voltage Contractor Should Read Twice

Tulsa has not had a hyperscale data center. That normally creates a hard ceiling for local contractors: even if you win the work, you cannot staff it, because the technicians with fiber and mission-critical experience are in Dallas, Phoenix, or Northern Virginia and they are already booked.

Meta's answer is the most directly relevant thing in this entire project. The company has partnered with Tulsa Tech and Tulsa Community College on a cross-institutional workforce development program for digital infrastructure careers, including a dedicated learning lab. The program is anticipated to produce more than 200 graduates annually, and the named training tracks are worth quoting plainly: cooling system simulation, fiber optic installation, and structured cabling, alongside AI and data analytics.

Read that again. Two of the three trade tracks are the core disciplines of low voltage work. A hyperscaler is funding a pipeline of roughly 200 new technicians per year, in the exact skills a data center technology package consumes, in a market that previously produced almost none.

The implications are concrete:

• The staffing ceiling is being lifted for you. A regional integrator that could previously bid one $3 million package can plausibly bid several, because the labor exists locally rather than needing to be flown in at per-diem.
• The competitive picture changes in about two years. Those graduates enter the market during the build. Contractors who establish relationships with Tulsa Tech and TCC now — advisory board seats, equipment donations, apprenticeship slots, instructor relationships — get first pick. Contractors who wait hire whoever is left.
• This pipeline outlives the project. A 200-per-year output does not stop when Meta finishes in 2028. Oklahoma is building a permanent low voltage labor base, which makes every subsequent mission-critical, healthcare, and institutional project in the region more biddable.

Most workforce announcements attached to megaprojects are vague gestures at "STEM education." This one names fiber optics and structured cabling specifically. That is not a press release line. That is a demand signal from an owner who knows exactly which trades will be his bottleneck.

Key Players

Role	Company	Status
Owner / Operator	Meta	First Oklahoma facility; 28th in the US, 32nd globally
General Contractor	Fortis Construction	Mobilized; broke ground April 2026
Electric Utility	Public Service Company of Oklahoma	Meta paying full electricity cost plus grid infrastructure contribution
Economic Development	PartnerTulsa	City of Tulsa economic development authority
Workforce Partners	Tulsa Tech and Tulsa Community College	200+ graduates annually in fiber optics, structured cabling, cooling simulation
Electrical Prime	Not announced	Open
Low Voltage / Technology Packages	Not announced	Open

Reviewed sources name Meta and Fortis. They do not name electrical, low voltage, fiber and outside plant, structured cabling, security, fire alarm, BMS, DAS and networking, grounding, or commissioning contractors. The general contractor is mobilized and reachable, and the technology buyout has roughly two years of runway.

Low Voltage Systems Breakdown

Signal tracks ten low voltage systems on Project Anthem — the standard hyperscale stack, at a scale that makes each one a standalone award.

System	Category	Scope Description	Complexity
Fiber	Data	Single-mode backbone within and between data halls, MPO/MTP trunk architecture, and high-density patching carrying east-west GPU cluster traffic. On 2 million square feet the splice count runs into the tens of thousands — which is precisely why Meta is funding fiber training locally.	Very High
Structured Cabling	Data/Voice	Horizontal and backbone copper, cabinet-level patching, overhead pathway and ladder rack across the data halls plus admin and support space. Repetitive at enormous volume — a production-labor package where crew depth determines whether you can hold schedule.	High
Outside Plant	Data	Campus duct bank, handholes and vaults, carrier entrance conduit, and diverse-path fiber routes across a 340-acre site. Coordinated with the $25 million road and utility improvement package.	High
Access Control	Security	Layered perimeter-to-hall credentialing, mantraps, turnstiles, and biometric readers at data hall entries. Hyperscale owners drive strict audit, retention, and change-control requirements that a commercial integrator may not have documented before.	High
CCTV	Security	Perimeter, yard, substation approach, entry, corridor, and data hall coverage with long retention and analytics. Camera counts on a campus this size reach into the thousands.	High
Fire Alarm	Life Safety	Addressable detection with very early warning aspirating smoke detection in data halls, integrated with clean-agent or pre-action release and sequenced against the electrical and mechanical shutdown matrix. Oklahoma AHJ coordination on a first-of-its-kind local facility adds review time.	Very High
BMS / Controls	Building Automation	Cooling plant control, containment and thermal monitoring, generator and substation status integration, EPMS tie-ins. The cooling-simulation track in the workforce program exists because this scope is where schedule risk concentrates.	Very High
Networking	Data	Facility, OT, and security network infrastructure separate from the compute fabric — everything that keeps the building observable and manageable.	High
DAS	Wireless	In-building cellular across very large structures with heavy electrical infrastructure, plus public safety radio coverage verified by the Tulsa fire authority.	Medium-High
Grounding & Bonding	Infrastructure	Signal reference and telecom bonding backbone, ground rings, cabinet and pathway bonding to IEEE and BICSI practice, coordinated with substation grounding design. Unforgiving work — errors surface as intermittent faults years later.	High

Estimated Low Voltage Value

Announced Investment	More than $1,000,000,000
Hyperscale LV Benchmark	approximately 4%
Estimated LV Contract Value	approximately $40 million

The 4% benchmark applies here because $1 billion is an announced capital investment figure — it bundles land, IT hardware, and program costs, not just construction. When a project reports a permitted construction value instead, a higher construction-based percentage is the right lens. Saying which basis you used matters, because the two approaches produce very different numbers from the same building.

Practically, $40 million across ten packages produces awards in the $1.5 million to $10 million range depending on system, released in phases through 2028. Fiber and structured cabling together will likely account for close to half of it.

Skills and Certifications Required

System	Key Certifications	Critical Skills
Fiber & Outside Plant	BICSI INSTF, BICSI OSP, FOA CFOT/CFOS, BICSI RCDD	Mass fusion splicing, MPO/MTP polarity management, OTDR and Tier 2 testing, duct bank and vault coordination
Structured Cabling	BICSI RCDD, BICSI DCDC, INSTC, manufacturer certification	High-volume production installation, containment and pathway design, Fluke certification at scale, as-built discipline
Fire Alarm	NICET Fire Alarm Level III+, Oklahoma alarm licensing	VESDA and aspirating detection, clean-agent and pre-action release logic, NFPA 72, AHJ coordination
Access Control & CCTV	ASIS PSP, manufacturer certification (Genetec, Lenel, Software House, Axis)	Multi-layer credentialing, large-scale VMS architecture, retention and storage sizing, audit documentation
BMS / Controls	Tridium Niagara N4, BACnet, manufacturer certification	Cooling sequences, containment monitoring, EPMS integration, high point-count commissioning
Grounding & Commissioning	BICSI/IEEE bonding practice, ACP/CxA credentials, IEC 62443 for OT security	Telecom bonding backbone, signal reference grids, Level 4-5 integrated systems testing

Contractors should verify Oklahoma licensing before pursuing this work. Oklahoma regulates electrical and alarm contracting through the Construction Industries Board, and low voltage scopes at this value will require the appropriate classification and bonding.

Market Signal

Oklahoma has not been a data center state. Project Anthem is the event that changes that, and the way Meta structured it is the tell.

The company is paying its own way on power, water, and roads, contributing to grid infrastructure directly, and building a technical labor pipeline from scratch. Those are the moves of an owner planning to be somewhere for a long time, not one running a single build. Fair Oaks Innovation Park is 2,000 acres and Meta occupies roughly 340 of them as the first anchor tenant, which leaves a great deal of room for what comes next.

For contractors, this is the second consecutive market opening LVN has tracked where the constraint was never demand. In coastal Georgia the missing piece was an established contractor roster. In Silicon Valley it was electrons. In Tulsa it is trained hands — and unusually, the owner is fixing that himself.

The strategic read is simple. Get qualified with Fortis Construction now, while the technology packages are still ahead. Get involved with Tulsa Tech and Tulsa Community College now, while the first cohorts are forming. The contractor who does both will be the obvious local choice for every mission-critical project Oklahoma sees for the next decade, and will have a crew to staff it.

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