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Meta’s AI Superpower Play: Massive Data Centers, Soaring Energy Demands, and the New Race for Intelligence
July 14, 2025
Meta is doubling down on its AI ambitions—this time with sheer brute force. In a post on Threads, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is building a massive new data center project called Hyperion, which is expected to eventually deliver five gigawatts (GW) of computational power to fuel Meta’s next-generation AI systems.
The move marks one of the largest AI infrastructure initiatives in the world, signaling Meta’s determination to outpace competitors like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic in the rapidly escalating AI arms race. After luring top talent like Alexandr Wang and Daniel Gross to helm the company’s Superintelligence Lab, Meta is now turning its attention to the massive energy and computing capacity required to train and run frontier AI models.
Hyperion, according to Zuckerberg, will sprawl over an area “large enough to cover most of Manhattan” and will be located in Richland Parish, Louisiana, where Meta has already committed to a $10 billion data center investment. The company aims to activate 2 GW of capacity by 2030, with plans to scale to 5 GW shortly thereafter.
But Hyperion isn’t the only piece of the puzzle. Zuckerberg also revealed Prometheus, a 1 GW “super cluster” set to come online in New Albany, Ohio, by 2026. Once operational, it would make Meta one of the first tech companies in the world to control AI compute infrastructure of this magnitude.
Together, Hyperion and Prometheus represent a high-stakes bet on infrastructure as the differentiator in the AI race. Their combined energy consumption is projected to rival that of millions of homes, a scale that’s already triggering concerns about the environmental and social impact of such projects.
For example, in Newton County, Georgia, where Meta operates another data center, residents have reportedly experienced dry water taps as a direct result of the facility’s water use, according to The New York Times. And Meta isn’t alone: AI infrastructure company CoreWeave is building a data center near Dallas, Texas, expected to double the city’s electricity demand.
Federal backing for this energy-hungry AI buildout is growing. The Trump administration has thrown its support behind projects like OpenAI’s Stargate, with President Trump himself helping to announce the initiative. In The Economist, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright framed AI as the next “energy-intensive frontier,” urging increased production of energy from coal, natural gas, nuclear, and geothermal sources to meet the coming surge in demand.
By 2030, experts warn that data centers could consume 20% of the U.S.’s total electricity output, a staggering jump from just 2.5% in 2022. Without a massive and immediate boost in energy generation, the boom in AI infrastructure could come at the cost of local communities’ access to basic resources like power and water.
While Meta’s latest announcement positions the company as a dominant force in AI, it also underscores a broader reckoning: The race for artificial intelligence may quickly become a race for energy. And the consequences won’t just affect Big Tech—they’ll ripple out to every grid, neighborhood, and natural resource in their path.
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