Meta expands Louisiana AI data center to 5 gigawatts, $50 billion investment

Meta said it is enlarging its Hyperion data center project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity and more than $50 billion in investment, a sharp jump from the earlier plan of a little more than 2 gigawatts. The company describes Hyperion as its largest multi-gigawatt AI training cluster, and the expansion places rural Northeast Louisiana at the center of the national race to build the infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence.

The project began construction in December 2024, and Meta said local Louisiana businesses have already received more than $1.6 billion in contracts tied to the buildout. The company also said it plans to spend more than $1 billion more on local infrastructure, including roads, water and wastewater systems. Meta said teachers in Richland Parish recently received annual bonuses of up to $50,000, which it attributed to higher tax revenues generated by the project.

The size of the energy demand is just as striking as the dollar figure. Entergy Louisiana said a March 2026 agreement with Meta would add seven natural-gas power plants, up to 2,500 megawatts of solar capacity and about 240 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines, all to be paid for by Meta. Entergy said the deal was structured so Meta would pay its full cost of service and projected $2.65 billion in customer benefits over 20 years, a promise meant to reassure ratepayers as the state prepares for a far larger industrial load on its grid.

That financing arrangement also drew scrutiny from consumer and environmental advocates. Earthjustice asked Louisiana regulators to investigate Meta’s funding structure earlier this year, warning that utility customers could be left carrying part of the bill if Meta departed before costs were recovered. The Louisiana Public Service Commission denied that request in February 2026. Earthjustice and the Union of Concerned Scientists said the deal created the risk of stranded power assets, a concern that has followed the project as it moved from a single campus plan into a massive utility partnership.

Meta said it now has 32 data centers worldwide, 28 of them in the United States, and it has paired the Louisiana expansion with a broader U.S. infrastructure pledge of $600 billion over the next three years. With Blue Owl Capital helping finance and own the Hyperion campus through a joint venture, the project has become more than a corporate expansion. It is a test of how much local communities will trade in jobs, tax revenue and upgrades to roads and water systems for the power-hungry data centers driving the AI boom.