Meta expands Louisiana Hyperion data center project to 5GW at over $50 billion

Meta said its Hyperion data center supercluster in Richland Parish, Louisiana, will grow into a 5GW facility costing more than $50 billion, up from an original $10 billion estimate when construction began in 2024 and from an earlier plan for more than 2GW of compute capacity. The expansion highlights both Meta’s aggressive AI infrastructure push and the widening political and economic debate over how states attract hyperscale projects with tax breaks, power arrangements and other incentives. Louisiana approved a 20-year sales tax exemption for qualifying data centers built before 2029, while the company still pays a 1% local sales tax on purchases, revenue that has helped fund school employee bonuses that Meta said topped $50,000 for some teachers. Meta said more than $1.6 billion has already been contracted with local companies and that thousands of jobs are being supported, but residents and consumer advocates have raised concerns over rising rents, traffic, displacement pressures and whether the project’s electricity demand could eventually raise rates for other customers. Entergy is building 10 new power plants and 240 miles of transmission lines for the site, paid for by Meta, which has also agreed to fund up to 2.5GW of renewable energy and signed what Entergy calls a Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Earthjustice, representing the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists, asked regulators to investigate Meta’s financing arrangement with Blue Owl Capital, arguing ratepayer protections may have weakened after Meta sold roughly 80% of the data center to the venture debt firm, but the Louisiana Public Service Commission declined to take up the probe in February. In June, Governor Jeff Landry directed the state’s economic development agency to draft rules aimed at protecting consumers from bearing the cost of new power plants.