Meta Doubles Hyperion to 5GW in Louisiana. Add the Chips and Bloomberg Gets to $250 Billion.
The $50 billion is what Meta spends building it. The $250 billion is what goes inside over its lifetime.
Meta Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana will grow from 2 gigawatts to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity under a plan announced today, with Meta putting the direct cost at more than $50 billion. Bloomberg reported separately that the full lifetime investment - once GPU clusters and specialized hardware fill the campus across its operational life - will surpass $250 billion. Both figures describe the same project. Meta's $50 billion covers the physical buildout: construction, energy infrastructure, and grid connections. Bloomberg's $250 billion adds the compute hardware that will run inside once each phase is ready. At 5GW, Hyperion would rank among the largest single-site AI training campuses ever built.
Hyperion broke ground in December 2024 with a $27 billion budget and a 2GW design. Today's announcement raises both numbers sharply. Meta has committed to having 2GW operational by 2030 but has not set a timeline for reaching 5GW. Blue Owl Capital and BlackRock are among the investors financing the expansion. Louisiana locked in Meta with a 20-year sales tax exemption passed in late 2024 for data centers that break ground before 2029 - Hyperion qualified with five years to spare.
Teacher Bonuses in Richland Parish Jumped From $10,000 to $50,000 This Year
Richland Parish has about 20,000 people. Meta's construction activity generated enough new tax revenue for the parish to quadruple teacher bonuses - from $10,000 in 2025 to $50,000 this year, a 400% increase. A $50,000 teacher bonus in a rural Louisiana parish is the kind of number that earns a data center a decade of local goodwill before a single server rack goes live.
Meta also committed $5 million to Louisiana Delta Community College for data center job training, and extended full trade certificate scholarships to every Richland Parish high school graduate starting with the class of 2026. Since construction began, Louisiana-based businesses have received $1.6 billion in contracts. Road upgrades, new water systems, and expanded wastewater capacity absorbed an additional $1 billion in local infrastructure investment. Jobs at full operation will exceed 1,000 - double the headcount Meta projected for the original 2GW design.
Seven Gas Plants, Three Batteries, and 240 Miles of New Transmission Lines
Powering 5GW requires dedicated energy infrastructure built from scratch. Meta signed an agreement with Entergy Louisiana to construct seven new natural gas plants, three grid-scale battery installations, and roughly 240 miles of high-voltage transmission lines - a buildout Entergy describes as sufficient to supply a mid-sized American city under normal load conditions. Entergy projects the arrangement will deliver $2.65 billion in combined customer benefits over the life of the contract, primarily from generation assets Entergy will retain and sell capacity from after Hyperion's buildout phases complete.
Natural gas is the primary fuel source - seven plants makes that clear. Beyond the three battery installations, Meta has not announced specific renewable energy commitments for Hyperion. Meta's plan to sell AI compute to outside customers turns energy cost per GPU-hour into a direct pricing variable for that cloud business, giving Meta a financial incentive to address power costs over time even without public climate commitments.
Why Meta Needs 5GW Running Before 2030
Meta cut 8,000 workers earlier this year to accelerate its AI agent program, then acknowledged the restructuring produced slower progress than expected. More raw compute directly addresses that gap. Faster training shortens the cycle between model versions and deployed AI products - meaning Hyperion at scale could accelerate the roadmap that the layoffs alone could not. Hyperion's 2GW phase must be operational by 2030 for any of that logic to pay off.
Apple committed $30 billion to Broadcom to manufacture chips in Colorado on a similar rationale: own the supply chain before a competitor does, on US soil, with local political backing. Meta's version of that bet is 4,000 acres in northeast Louisiana, a $50 billion construction bill, and a 5GW target with no firm completion date for the second phase. Washington has not moved to block any of it. Richland Parish has every financial reason to ensure Hyperion gets built on schedule.