Meta Louisiana data center investment reaches $50 billion amid AI push

Meta’s massive Hyperion data center project in rural Louisiana is getting much bigger and costlier, with a big assist from the state’s government.

The company said in a blog post Monday that the site in Richland Parish, Louisiana — home to what will be Meta’s largest data center — will be a 5 GW facility and cost more than $50 billion. That’s higher than the $27 billion figure that was revealed in October, when Meta and Blue Owl Capital formed a joint venture to help with the build-out and management of the facility, originally planned as a 2 GW data center.

As Meta pursues its multi-hundred-billion-dollar artificial intelligence build-out, the company and hyperscaler rivals Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon are taking advantage of tax rebates and energy deals being offered by states that are fighting to get a piece of the AI boom.

In late 2024, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a 20-year sales tax exemption for data centers built before 2029 as part of an effort to court Meta in the state, CNBC previously reported. Landry is set to host a press event on Monday in Baton Rouge.

“I’m a business guy,” Landry told CNBC in an interview last year. “What we know is when you look at the overall comprehensive package here, it’s in the black. For local government, and the state, and how you get to the bottom line is irrespective to me.”

Meta is expanding the project as it seeks to build out enough AI infrastructure to meet demand. The announcement comes after Meta had its best week on the stock market since early 2024 following the release of two major artificial intelligence models under the leadership of AI chief Alexandr Wang, head of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Investors have been looking for the company to start showing returns on its outsized AI investments.

Meta said in Monday’s post that the company “pays the full costs of the energy, water, and related infrastructure the data center uses so consumers aren’t paying the cost.” Since construction of the Louisiana data center began in December 2024, local businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts from Meta, the company said.

“With this expansion, we will be investing over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems,” Meta said in the post. The company didn’t announce a financial partner for the expansion.

When the project began, the estimated price tag was $10 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post roughly six months later that the supercluster, named Hyperion, would be “able to scale up to 5GW over several years.” Unlike traditional data centers, superclusters are packed with graphics processing units and related cutting-edge hardware tailored for AI workloads.

“Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher,” Zuckerberg wrote.

A Meta spokesperson told CNBC that the Hyperion project should reach 2 GW by 2030, but there’s no timeline for when the full 5 GW project will be completed.

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