Gov. Jeff Landry hails expansion of Meta’s massive data center in Louisiana

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Gov. Jeff Landry and other Louisiana leaders on Monday hailed an announcement that Facebook parent company Meta is more than doubling the size of its mammoth Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, saying this is a moment that “Louisiana has been waiting for for generations.”

Data centers are the “backbone of a digital economy,” Landry said, and they represent “the next industrial revolution.”

“We’re building a foundation for the next generation of American prosperity,” Landry said.

The expansion, first reported by The Advocate | The Times-Picayune, will increase the total cost from $10 billion to $50 billion. The site will now cover 3,200 acres — roughly five square miles — and will have 5 gigawatts worth of computing power, making it one of the largest in the world.

“Louisiana is the envy of every state,” said Dina Powell McCormick, president and vice chairman of Meta.

“We want to be the very best partners that this state could possibly have,” she said. “We are here for the long haul, and we could not be more proud.”

The expansion will increase the number of construction jobs to roughly 7,500 — about 50% more than originally announced. And it will double the number of permanent jobs to 1,000 once both phases of the project are fully operational, which is estimated to be in 2036.

Meta has said it will spend $1 billion to upgrade infrastructure in Richland, which has just 20,000 residents and is among Louisiana’s poorest parishes.

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