Meta is currently building a data center called Hyperion. The company expects to provide 5 Gigawatts (GW) of computing power to its new AI lab.
The announcement shows the latest moves in the meta ahead of Openai and Google in the AI race. After previously poaching top talents to run the Meta Super Intelligence Lab, Meta, including former scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and former Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross, appears to be paying attention to the massive computing power needed to train frontier AI models.
Zuckerberg said the Hyperion footprint would be large enough to cover most of Manhattan. According to semiconductor analysts at Semianalysis, Hyperion appears to be located in a town in northeastern Louisiana called the Richland Parish. In 2024, Meta announced a $10 billion data center development in the town. This was originally planned to be a 2 Golden Week super cluster. In his post, Zuckerberg said that Hyperion will scale to 5 gigawatts over “a few years.”
Zuckerberg also said Meta plans to bring in a 1 GW super cluster called Prometheus online in 2026, making it one of the first high-tech companies to control an AI data center of this size. Prometheus appears to be a network of data centers located around New Albany, Ohio.
Meta’s AI data center buildout appears likely to make businesses more competitive in their ability to train and serve Openai, Google Deepmind, and key AI models. This effort could also help the meta attract additional talent. Additional talent will lead to working for companies with calculation needs to compete in AI races.
Together, Prometheus and Hyperion can absorb enough energy to run millions of homes, and draw a significant amount of electricity and water from nearby communities. One of Meta’s data center projects in Newton County, Georgia, is already drying water taps in some residents’ homes, The New York Times reported Monday.
Other AI data center projects can cause similar problems for people living nearby. AI Hyperscaler CoreWeave is planning to expand its data center, which is expected to double the electricity needs of cities near Dallas, Texas, according to Bloomberg.
Nevertheless, tech companies are determined to build large-scale data center projects to promote AI ambitions. Other notable efforts include Openai’s Stargate Project using Oracle and Softbank, and Xai’s Colossus Supercomputer.
The Trump administration has defended the build-out of AI data centers, primarily in the tech industry. President Donald Trump has helped Openai announce the Stargate project and has since spoken about his efforts to expand America’s AI infrastructure.
In a column appearing in Economist on Monday, energy secretary Chris Wright called on the United States to “lead the next major energy-intensive frontier: artificial intelligence.” He noted that AI would convert electricity into “the most valuable product imaginable: intelligence,” and that the federal government would accelerate the production of energy derived from coal, nuclear, geothermal and natural gas.
With the support of federal officials, the AI industry appears to be poised to absorb much of America’s energy over the next few years. Experts estimate that by 2030 it could account for 20% of US energy consumption. Energy production will not increase rapidly, as it has increased from just 2.5% in 2022.
