Hyperion (Meta data center)
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Hyperion is an artificial intelligence data center campus built by Meta in Richland Parish, in northeast Louisiana, United States. Meta has said the site will scale toward roughly 5 gigawatts (GW) of computing capacity over several years, which would make it the company's largest data center.[1][2] Zuckerberg disclosed the project's name and scale on July 14, 2025, presenting it alongside a smaller Ohio cluster named Prometheus as part of Meta's plan to spend "hundreds of billions of dollars" building infrastructure for superintelligence.[2][3] The campus is sometimes referred to by its formal designation, the Richland Parish Data Center; "Hyperion" is the internal cluster name Meta uses for the compute it will house.[1][4]
Hyperion sits on a roughly 2,250-acre tract near the community of Holly Ridge, along Louisiana Highway 183.[4] Meta plans about 4 million square feet of buildings on the site and describes it as the largest data center the company has undertaken.[1][4] Construction is scheduled to run from 2025 through 2030.[4]
The "Hyperion" label refers to the AI training and inference cluster Meta intends to operate at the campus rather than to the buildings alone. Meta's public materials for the site emphasize the project's regional economic footprint, while Mark Zuckerberg's own statements have focused on its compute scale and its role in the company's pursuit of advanced AI.[1][2]
Meta first announced a data center investment in Richland Parish on December 4, 2024, framing it as a commitment of "more than $10 billion" to the region.[1] The "Hyperion" name and the multi-gigawatt scale became public on July 14, 2025, when Zuckerberg published a post stating that Meta was "building several multi-GW clusters" and would "invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence."[2][3]
In that post Zuckerberg named two facilities. The first, Prometheus, he said was "coming online in '26." The second, he wrote, was "Hyperion, which will be able to scale up to 5GW over several years."[2][3] He also offered a size comparison, saying that "just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan."[3] The buildout is tied to Meta Superintelligence Labs, the research organization Meta established in 2025 to consolidate its frontier AI work.[2]
The campus is in Richland Parish, a rural area of northeast Louisiana; Meta has said the project will draw workers and contracting from the nearby municipalities of Rayville, Delhi, and Mangham.[1] The table below summarizes the most consistently reported figures. Some values, particularly the headline capacity and the total cost, have been described differently as the project has grown, and the notes indicate the source and framing for each.
| Attribute | Reported value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Richland Parish, Louisiana (near Holly Ridge, off LA Hwy 183) | Northeast Louisiana[1][4] |
| Formal name | Richland Parish Data Center | "Hyperion" is the cluster name[1][4] |
| Land area | About 2,250 acres | Buildings of about 4 million sq ft[4] |
| Target capacity | Up to about 5 GW over several years | Zuckerberg, July 14, 2025[2][3] |
| First-phase capacity | About 2 GW | Meta's site cites "over 2 gigawatts"; about 2 GW by 2030 reported[1][5] |
| Initial investment | More than $10 billion | Announced December 4, 2024[1] |
| Reported financing | About $27 billion to $29 billion | Blue Owl / PIMCO structure, October 2025[5][6] |
| Construction period | 2025 to 2030 | Phased buildout[4] |
| Jobs | About 5,000 at peak construction; 500+ operational | Meta figures[1] |
Meta's own description of the site cites "over 2 gigawatts of compute capacity for AI model training," which corresponds to the first phase; the roughly 5 GW figure is the longer-term target Zuckerberg described as being reached "over several years."[1][2] Some reporting has characterized 5 GW as exceeding the electricity that Louisiana as a whole currently uses.[4]
Meta began site work in 2025 after announcing the project in December 2024, and it has guided construction through 2030.[1][4] Reporting on the phased schedule indicates an interim milestone of roughly 1.5 GW by the end of 2027 and a first phase of about 2 GW by 2030, with further capacity added thereafter toward the 5 GW target.[5] As the design grew, Meta acquired additional land adjacent to the original tract, expanding the campus footprint.[7]
Meta has committed to local infrastructure spending tied to the project, including more than $300 million for roads, water, and wastewater systems, and a fund for community projects administered through a regional revitalization board.[1] At peak construction Meta projects more than 5,000 skilled-trade workers on site, with more than 500 operational jobs once the facility is running; state and local economic-development materials have cited a long-run figure of about 1,500 jobs.[1][4]
Powering Hyperion requires a large expansion of generation and transmission in the region, supplied chiefly by the utility Entergy Louisiana. Meta has said it will pay for the new generation built on its behalf.[8][9]
In an initial package, the Louisiana Public Service Commission on August 20, 2025 approved Entergy plans for three new natural-gas combined-cycle plants totaling about 2.25 GW, together with at least 1.5 GW of solar procurement.[10] The approved plants comprise two 1,500-megawatt units in Richland Parish, expected online around mid-2029, and a 754-megawatt unit in St. Charles Parish, expected by the end of 2029; Meta is also funding a new high-voltage substation serving the site.[10]
As the project's power needs grew, Meta and Entergy reached a revised agreement, reported in March 2026, to roughly triple the gas generation. The expanded plan would bring the total to ten gas-fired plants and on the order of 7.5 GW of gas capacity, alongside up to 2.5 GW of renewable capacity including battery storage.[8][9] The seven additional plants required fresh regulatory review; the Public Service Commission adopted a fast-track schedule in 2026 and was reported to be targeting a final decision later that year.[9][11] The cost of the ten power plants alone has been reported at roughly $11 billion.[9]
The campus financing has been structured partly off Meta's balance sheet. In October 2025 Meta arranged a financing package for the Hyperion development reported at roughly $27 billion to $29 billion, built around equity from Blue Owl Capital and debt managed by PIMCO, with the overall process led by Morgan Stanley.[5][6]
The scale of the gas buildout has drawn criticism. Environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice have raised objections over emissions and over the expedited regulatory treatment of the new plants.[4] Meta has said it will match the facility's electricity use with new clean and renewable energy added to the grid, and it has funded water-restoration work in the region, including a watershed project on the Bayou Pierre-Red River system carried out with Resource Environmental Solutions.[1] Reporting has also described local concerns about construction traffic and grid reliability, which Entergy has disputed.[4] The characterizations of environmental impact in this section are those of the cited parties.
Hyperion is one of two named clusters Zuckerberg disclosed in July 2025, and the larger of the pair. The other, Prometheus, is a roughly 1 GW supercluster in New Albany, Ohio, occupying a smaller industrial tract of around 740 acres, which Meta has said will come online in 2026.[2][5] Where Prometheus is the nearer-term facility expected to reach the gigawatt scale first, Hyperion is the longer-horizon campus that Meta intends to scale toward 5 GW over a period of years.[2][5] Reporting has noted that Prometheus uses rapid-deployment building methods to speed its construction, distinguishing its approach from the more conventional buildout in Louisiana.[5]
Hyperion is among the largest single AI computing projects publicly disclosed, and it illustrates how frontier AI ambitions are reshaping electricity planning. A campus targeting roughly 5 GW, backed by about ten new power plants, represents a substantial addition to a state grid and has made Meta's relationship with Entergy and Louisiana regulators a closely watched case for how utilities accommodate hyperscale demand.[8][9][10] The project also marks a shift in how such buildouts are financed, with Meta moving a large share of the development off its balance sheet through a joint venture and external debt.[5][6] More broadly, Hyperion sits among a wave of multi-gigawatt AI campuses announced in the United States in 2025, alongside efforts such as the Stargate Project, as the leading AI developers race to secure compute and power at scale.[2][5]