Meta doubles Richland Parish AI campus to 5GW, $50B

Meta has roughly doubled the planned scale of its Hyperion data center campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 gigawatts and $50 billion, and the tell for developers is what it took to secure the power: seven new natural gas plants built just to feed one site.

Why it matters

Power availability, not land or zoning, is the binding constraint on AI-scale data centers, and Meta’s Louisiana build shows the lengths hyperscalers will go to get it. Rather than wait on the grid, utility partner Entergy is adding seven new natural-gas plants, three grid-scale batteries and nuclear uprates to serve a single campus. For developers chasing the sector’s spillover, the land, construction and industrial demand that trail a megaproject, the lesson is that site selection now follows generation capacity: the parishes and counties that can marshal dedicated power win the projects. It also sharpens the ratepayer question now shadowing the whole beat.

The numbers

Meta will invest roughly $50 billion in the Richland Parish area, lifting the campus to 5GW from an initial 2GW plan. The footprint spans 2,250 acres plus another 1,400 bought in late 2025, about 3,650 acres carrying 4 million square feet across an initial nine buildings. Entergy’s generation plan, seven gas plants, three batteries, nuclear uprates and purchased power, is pitched to save local customers $2 billion over 20 years. Meta has committed $1 billion for roads, water and wastewater and says $1.6 billion is already contracted with local firms. Around 1,000 permanent jobs are expected once operational, with construction of the first buildings running through 2030.

What’s next

Watch whether regulators sign off on a utility building fossil generation for one private customer, the flashpoint as data-center demand collides with residential bills. Louisiana officials say the state has landed more than $150 billion in new investment in two years; the model, dedicated generation for a named hyperscaler, is the template other power-rich markets will copy. Track the beat at our data centers hub and the national market.