Meta Builds 5GW AI Data Center to Compete in AI Race

Meta’s AI Ambitions

Meta is currently building out a data center, called Hyperion, which the company expects to supply its new AI lab with five gigawatts (GW) of computational power, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. The announcement marks Meta’s latest move to get ahead of OpenAI and Google in the AI race.

After previously poaching top talent to run Meta Superintelligence Lab, including former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and former Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross, Meta now seems to be turning its attention to the massive computational power needed to train frontier AI models.

Hyperion Data Center

Meta spokesperson Ashley Gabriel told TechCrunch that Hyperion will be located in Louisiana, likely in Richland Parish where Meta previously announced a data center development. Gabriel says Meta plans to bring two gigawatts of data center capacity online, but that it would scale to five gigawatts in several years.

Zuckerberg also noted that Meta plans to bring a 1 GW super cluster, called Prometheus, online, making it one of the first tech companies to control an AI data center of this size. Gabriel says Prometheus is located in New Albany, Ohio.

AI Data Center Build-out

Meta’s AI data center build-out seems likely to make the company more competitive with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic in its ability to train and serve leading AI models. It’s possible the effort could also help Meta attract additional talent, who may be drawn to work at a company with the computational needs to compete in the AI race.

Together, Prometheus and Hyperion will soak up enough energy to power millions of homes, which could pull significant amounts of electricity and water from neighboring communities. Other AI data center projects may cause similar problems for people living near them.