Tax incentives boost the expansion of technology giants. Facebook’s parent company plans to build a US$50 billion super-large data center in the United States
Meta announced on the 13th that it will significantly expand the scale of its "Hyperion" data center super cluster project in Richland County, Louisiana, USA. The planned capacity of the project will be increased to 5 gigawatts (GW), and the total investment is expected to exceed US$50 billion. Analysts pointed out that driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, Meta and And other technology giants are accelerating the deployment of computing infrastructure on a global scale. Meta’s expanded investment this time aims to provide computing power support for its recently released blockbuster artificial intelligence model, and to send a signal to the market that its AI investments are gradually being transformed into technological output and competitive advantages. According to the plan announced by Meta, the initial budget for the data center project was US$10 billion, which was later raised to US$27 billion through the establishment of a joint venture with Blue Owl Capital in October last year. With this additional investment, the total investment in the project has doubled to more than US$50 billion. According to the project construction timeline, the facility is expected to reach 2 GW of capacity in 2030, with the 5 GW supercluster fully completed around 2032. Unlike traditional data centers, this super cluster will centrally deploy massive graphics processing units (GPUs) and cutting-edge hardware, specifically designed to handle large-scale artificial intelligence loads. The implementation of this ultra-large investment benefited from the high financial and tax policy support provided by the local government. In order to attract technology giants to settle in, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (Jeff Landry) previously signed a bill to provide up to 20 years of sales tax exemption for data centers built before 2029. In an interview with the media, Landry emphasized that local governments are committed to attracting emerging industries to boost the local economy by providing comprehensive policy packages. In response to external concerns about the consumption of public resources by ultra-large data centers, Meta said in a statement that the company will fully bear the construction costs of energy, water resources and related infrastructure required for data center operations. Since the project started in December 2024, more than US$1.6 billion in contracts have been awarded to local companies, and more than US$1 billion will be invested in improving public infrastructure such as local roads, water and wastewater treatment systems.