Meta's $50 Billion AI Data Center in Louisiana: A Massive Investment in Superintelligence

Meta's planned Louisiana AI data center to cost $50 billion, Trump says

Aug 26 (Reuters) - Meta's (META.O), opens new tab planned AI data center in Louisiana will cost $50 billion, President Donald Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The social media company is building its largest data center in Richland Parish, which could handle intense computational power to support digital infrastructure, including artificial intelligence workloads. The Facebook and Instagram parent declined to comment when asked about Trump's remarks about the data center. Meta has tapped U.S. bond giant PIMCO and alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital (OWL.N), opens new tab to spearhead a $29 billion financing for its data center expansion in rural Louisiana, Reuters reported earlier this month. The company announced last year that it would spend over $10 billion to set up the data center. Meta reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs in June, a high-stakes push that followed senior staff departures and lukewarm reception to its latest open-source Llama 4 model. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month that Meta would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers for Superintelligence, intensifying his pursuit of a technology he has chased with a talent war for top engineers. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Vijay Kishore Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Meta's planned Louisiana AI data centre to cost $50 billion: Donald Trump - The Economic Times

Meta is building a $50 billion AI data centre in Louisiana, its largest yet, to support advanced digital infrastructure. Financed partly by PIMCO and Blue Owl Capital, the project reflects CEO Mark Zuckerberg's major AI push through Superintelligence Labs, despite recent setbacks and criticism of its Llama 4 model.Meta's planned AI data centre in Louisiana will cost $50 billion, US President Donald Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The social media company is building its largest data centre in Richland Parish, which could handle intense computational power to support digital infrastructure, including artificial intelligence workloads. The Facebook and Instagram parent declined to comment when asked about Trump's remarks about the data centre. Meta has tapped US bond giant PIMCO and alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital to spearhead a $29 billion financing for its data centre expansion in rural Louisiana, Reuters reported earlier this month. The company announced last year that it would spend over $10 billion to set up the data centre. Meta reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs in June, a high-stakes push that followed senior staff departures and lukewarm reception to its latest open-source Llama 4 model. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month that Meta would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centres for Superintelligence, intensifying his pursuit of a technology he has chased with a talent war for top engineers.

Trump Says Meta to Spend $50 Billion on Louisiana Data Center | PYMNTS.com

According to the report, Meta's public statements on its data center have said only that its investment will "exceed $10 billion." Meta did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment on the report. It was reported Saturday (Aug. 23) that Meta is getting $29 billion from Pacific Investment Management and Blue Owl Capital for its data center in rural Louisiana. In a July post on Facebook, Zuckerberg said Meta would invest "hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence." PYMNTS reported at the time that compute refers to computational power, encompassing chips, servers and connectivity in data centers. Zuckerberg said in the post that Meta is building several multi-gigawatt clusters, with one called Prometheus coming online in 2026 and Hyperion scaling up to 5 gigawatts over several years. "We're building multiple more titan clusters as well," Zuckerberg said in the post. "Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan." Meta said in a Wednesday (Aug. 20) press release that its newest data center is now operational in Kansas City, Missouri, after being in the works since 2022. The company added that the first of its data centers with an AI-optimized design is set to go online in 2026. It will feature custom hardware solutions optimized for the technology. "These data centers also leverage AI solutions to prioritize resource efficiency as we develop new technologies and expand our work building the future of human connection," Meta said in the release.

Trump announces Mark Zuckerberg's Meta planning to spend $50B on...

President Trump said Tuesday that Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is planning to spend $50 billion on its massive new data center in Louisiana - an eye-popping figure that's far bigger than what was previously announced. Trump expressed shock at the size and cost of the project - which will be used to support Meta's energy-guzzling artificial intelligence systems - during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. "I built shopping centers and for $50 million, you can build a very nice shopping center," said Trump. "So, I never understood, when they said $50 billion for a plant, I said, 'what the hell kind of a plant is that?' But when you look at this, you understand why it's $50 billion." The president held up a superimposed photo of the plant, dubbed the Hyperion Data Center, that covered much of Manhattan. Trump said the photo had been given to him by Zuckerberg. Meta did not immediately return a request for comment. So far, Meta had only publicly confirmed that it would spend more than $10 billion on the data center, which will be the largest of its kind in the world. Reuters previously reported that Meta was partnering with bond giant PIMCO and alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital to secure at least $29 billion in necessary financing for the data center, which will be built in rural Louisiana. The data center is one of several such plants currently planned by Meta and other Big Tech firms locked in the race to develop advanced AI, according to Trump. "A lot of them going up now," Trump added. "Actually, Mark is building four of them and others are building similar places." Zuckerberg has poured billions of dollars and poached top talent from OpenAI and other AI rivals in recent weeks while building Meta's "Superintelligence Labs," its in-house effort to build AI systems. Meta, OpenAI and other firms need data centers and huge numbers of powerful computer chips to account for the massive power and computational requirements needed for energy-guzzling AI models. The billionaire, who has met with Trump several times since he took office, said in July that his company was "going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence." Last month, Zuckerberg also shared the same image that Trump held up at the Cabinet meeting. He noted that it was one of multiple AI "clusters" currently in the works. "Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher," Zuckerberg said at the time.

Meta's planned Louisiana AI data center to cost $50 billion, Trump says

(Reuters) -Meta's planned AI data center in Louisiana will cost $50 billion, President Donald Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The social media company is building its largest data center in Richland Parish, which could handle intense computational power to support digital infrastructure, including artificial intelligence workloads. The Facebook and Instagram parent declined to comment when asked about Trump's remarks about the data center. Meta has tapped U.S. bond giant PIMCO and alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital to spearhead a $29 billion financing for its data center expansion in rural Louisiana, Reuters reported earlier this month. The company announced last year that it would spend over $10 billion to set up the data center. Meta reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs in June, a high-stakes push that followed senior staff departures and lukewarm reception to its latest open-source Llama 4 model. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month that Meta would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers for Superintelligence, intensifying his pursuit of a technology he has chased with a talent war for top engineers. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Vijay Kishore)