Meta has increased its planned investment in its Hyperion data centre in Louisiana to more than $50 billion, as the company expands one of its biggest artificial intelligence infrastructure projects.
The company said on Monday that the Hyperion facility in Richland Parish will now be built to support up to 5 gigawatts (GW) of compute capacity.
Earlier plans had projected the site would deliver more than 2GW to support the training of large language models, the technology behind tools such as ChatGPT.
The investment is significantly higher than the $27 billion estimate disclosed in October when Meta and Blue Owl Capital announced a joint venture to help develop and manage the project.
When construction began in December 2024, the estimated cost stood at about $10 billion.
Meta said the expanded project reiterates its goal to build enough computing capacity to meet growing demand for AI services. The company expects the Hyperion site to reach 2GW by 2030, although it has not said when the full 5GW capacity will be completed.
“Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute, and by far the greatest compute per researcher,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in an earlier Facebook post announcing plans to scale the project.
Hyperion is set to become Meta’s largest data centre. Unlike traditional facilities, AI superclusters house large numbers of graphics processing units (GPUs) and specialised hardware designed to handle demanding AI workloads.
The company said it currently operates, or is building, 32 data centres worldwide, with 28 located in the United States.
Meta’s investment comes as technology companies spend heavily on AI infrastructure. Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon are also expanding data centre capacity as demand for computing power surges.
To attract such investments, several US states have introduced tax incentives and energy agreements for large-scale data centre projects. In Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry signed a law in late 2024 granting a 20-year sales tax exemption for qualifying data centres built before 2029.
Meta said it pays the full cost of the energy, water and related infrastructure used by the Hyperion data centre facility.
“With this expansion, we will be investing over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems,” the company said.
It added that businesses in Louisiana have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts since construction started in December 2024.
According to Meta, increased tax revenues generated by the project also helped fund annual teacher bonuses of up to $50,000 in Richland Parish, representing a 400% increase from the previous year.
The project has, however, drawn complaints from some environmental and consumer groups over its energy demands. Earlier this year, Earthjustice asked authorities to investigate the financing arrangement for the Louisiana data centre, arguing that utility customers could end up bearing part of the cost if Meta abandoned the project before investments were recovered.
The request was later rejected.
Meta has also pledged to invest $600 billion in US infrastructure and jobs over the next three years as it continues to expand its AI focus.
