Story
Meta to Expand Louisiana Data Center to 5 Gigawatts in $50 Billion AI Push
Meta Platforms is significantly expanding its data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity to power its growing artificial intelligence initiatives. The company announced the expansion represents a total investment of more than $50 billion in the region.
Project Scope and Local Investment
Since construction began in December 2024, Meta reported that local Louisiana businesses have already received over $1.6 billion in contracts related to the project. The social media and technology giant also plans to invest more than $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including upgrades to roads, water, and wastewater systems, according to the announcement.
This investment aligns with a figure mentioned last year, when, as reported by Investing.com, U.S. President Donald Trump stated the data center project would cost $50 billion.
AdThe AI Infrastructure Race
The expansion is part of a broader, industry-wide push to secure massive amounts of computing power for AI development. Meta, along with other major technology firms, is investing billions to build out data center capacity as the demand for training and deploying advanced AI models continues to outpace supply.
This project falls under Meta's wider commitment to invest $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years. The company stated these large-scale data centers are essential to support CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitions in AI agent technology and other advanced AI projects.