Meta has expanded the planned scale of its data centre in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 gigawatts (GW) and increased its investment commitment for the site to more than $50 billion.

On July 13 local time, major foreign media outlets including blockchain news site Cryptopolitan reported that Meta calls the data centre Hyperion. It said the site would support more than 1,000 jobs at full operation.

The expansion has made Meta's strategy to scale up high-performance computing infrastructure clearer. Meta's earlier jobs pledge for the facility has now been increased to about double. The initial investment commitment was $10 billion, but the scale kept growing as the project progressed and has now topped $50 billion.

Total costs could be higher. The disclosed figure is more than $50 billion, but there is also local speculation that Meta has decided to invest an additional $40 billion in the campus and that total project costs could reach about $250 billion. A significant portion is reported to be used to secure computing chips for a site covering about 4,000 acres. Meta has not publicly disclosed spending beyond more than $50 billion.

The project also includes outside funding. Blue Owl Capital holds an 80 percent stake in the site and has raised several billion dollars on Wall Street to finance construction. Meta has 33 data centres that are built or under development. Last week it said it would invest $10 billion in its first data centre in Canada.

Power procurement is a key variable for the project. Running 5 GW of computing equipment requires vast amounts of electricity. Entergy Louisiana is building 10 new gas power plants to supply electricity to the data centre. Including general power demand across the campus in addition to running servers, an additional more than 2 GW of power is expected to be needed.

Meta said it would cover costs for energy, water and infrastructure. Meta said its energy contract with Entergy Louisiana also benefits local residents. The company said the deal would allow Entergy customers to save more than $2 billion over 20 years. Meta also plans to invest more than $1 billion to improve local roads and water supply and wastewater treatment systems.

Changes in the community are already emerging. Teachers in Richland Parish schools have recently begun receiving annual bonuses of about $50,000, helped by increased tax revenue from the data centre. That is a sharp increase from about $10,000 a year ago. Sheldon Jones (셸던 존스), superintendent of the Richland Parish School District, said the funds are "changing the lives of teachers and families and transforming schools". He added that the funding has also helped recruit more competitive teachers.

Meta is also putting money into developing the local workforce. It will invest $5 million in Louisiana Delta Community College to provide scholarships for residents receiving job training for data centre work. Starting with the graduating class of 2026, all high school graduates in Richland Parish will be eligible for full scholarships for data centre occupation programs.

Amid this trend, Meta last June also launched America's Workforce Academy, a U.S. skilled trades education program. The program offered free tuition and guaranteed jobs for graduates. Mark Zuckerberg (마크 저커버그), Meta's chief executive officer, has said Meta is trying to secure as much computing power as it can for the race for AI superintelligence. The Louisiana expansion is also leading to investment that simultaneously increases computing resources, power and the local workforce base.