Meta said Monday it will more than double the size of its Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity at a cost exceeding $50 billion, up from the $27 billion, 2-gigawatt plan disclosed in October.

The expansion ranks among the largest AI infrastructure commitments announced to date and rests on a 20-year sales tax exemption Louisiana signed into law in late 2024 to court Meta, plus a power arrangement with Entergy Louisiana that Meta said will save utility customers more than $2 billion over 20 years. It comes four days after Meta announced a $9.1 billion Alberta data center — its largest outside the U.S. — and signals an AI infrastructure race now measured in tens of billions per site.

What Meta pledged

The Hyperion site broke ground in December 2024 and has since routed more than $1.6 billion in contracts to Louisiana businesses, Meta said. "With this expansion, we will be investing over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems," the company wrote in a blog post. A Meta spokesperson told CNBC the site should reach 2 gigawatts by 2030 but declined to set a timeline for the full 5-gigawatt build. Meta did not name a financial partner for the expansion, after teaming with Blue Owl Capital on the original 2-gigawatt phase.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg had previewed the scale-up on Facebook, saying the supercluster would be "able to scale up to 5GW over several years." He added that "Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher."

Richland Parish boom

The project is reshaping Richland Parish, a rural community of about 20,000. Teachers there this year received annual bonuses of more than $50,000, up from $10,000 last year, tied to new tax revenue from the data center. "It's life-altering for our teachers and their families, and it's transforming our schools," Richland Parish School District Superintendent Sheldon Jones said in a statement. Meta is also donating $5 million to Louisiana Delta Community College to fund scholarships for data-center trade jobs, and starting with the class of 2026, all Richland Parish high school graduates will be eligible for full scholarships in those programs.

The tax bill

Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the 20-year sales tax exemption for data centers built before 2029 into law in late 2024, part of the state's push to land Meta. "I'm a business guy," Landry told CNBC last year. "What we know is when you look at the overall comprehensive package here, it's in the black. For local government, and the state, and how you get to the bottom line is irrespective to me." Meta said the company "pays the full costs of the energy, water, and related infrastructure the data center uses so consumers aren't paying the cost."

Counterpoint

CNBC framed the deal as part of a wider pattern in which Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon are extracting tax rebates and energy deals from states racing to attract AI investment, with Louisiana's exemption among the more generous. Fox Business emphasized the teacher bonuses and workforce scholarships and did not surface grid-strain or ratepayer concerns. Neither report contained an independent analysis of what an additional 5 gigawatts of always-on AI demand will require of Entergy's generation and transmission network over the coming decade.

Landry is scheduled to host a press event Monday in Baton Rouge. Meta's target of 2 gigawatts by 2030 is the next public milestone on Hyperion; the full 5-gigawatt buildout has no announced completion date.