In a major economic development victory, Facebook’s parent company Meta will build its largest data center ever on a patch of farmland in northeast Louisiana, Gov. Jeff Landry announced Wednesday, calling the project “transformational” in positioning the state as a site for infrastructure fueling the artificial intelligence boom .
The $10 billion project, one of the largest private investments in state history, will build a 4 million-square-foot facility — about the size of 70 football fields — on 2,250 acres outside of Holly Ridge.
At a news conference at the Rayville Civic Center in Richland Parish, Landry told the assembled crowd of local officials, journalists and Meta representatives that the project would provide a critical boost to the economy local while also putting Louisiana on the map like Meta and others. Global technology companies are looking for places for new investments.
“Today everything changes,” Landry said to applause as he detailed the immense scope of the project. “We are positioning the state as a leader in the world of technology.”
Kevin Janda, Meta director of data center strategy, speaks at an event in Rayville, La., Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, to announce that Meta will build an AI-optimized data center in the Richland Parish.
The investment was a political victory for Landry, who has pledged to bring new businesses and jobs to the state. During the press conference, he was joined by Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan B. Bourgeois, Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May, U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow and Centers Strategy Director of Meta data, Kevin Janda, who said that the first work on the site had already started.
“This will create more than 500 operational jobs,” Janda said, “and more than 5,000 construction jobs.”
Josh Fleig, LED’s chief innovation officer, said Meta was committed “to hiring as many local people as possible,” a point that was reiterated by Janda.
The direct jobs created, Fleig says, will include workers inside the data center who will manage the physical equipment, “everything from the infrastructure that provides electricity or water, to those on the equipment , or to the equipment itself, in terms of refreshment, replacement”. , monitor, also monitor the network.
He says there will also be software-type positions, as well as electrical, plumbing and facilities management positions.
Earthworks are underway at the site of a future Meta AI-optimized data center in the Holly Ridge area of Richland Parish, Louisiana, shown here on Wednesday, December 4, 2024.
In aaddition to data center
In addition to the $10 billion spent on data centerThe project also includes three new Entergy power plants at a cost of $3.2 billion. These new factories will power the installation huge amounts of electricity it will have to work.
Two of the natural gas-fired plants are planned for Richland Parish; the third north of Baton Rouge. In its PSC documents, Entergy says it plans to include generation from co-firing of nuclear, wind and hydrogen in the new plants which are expected to produce a combined 3,762 megawatts of power, enough to power some 1,000 megawatts of power. 6 million homes.
Multinational companies seeking to become leaders in AI, such as Microsoft, Apple, Meta and others, are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build these processing centers in the United States and abroad . But not all regions have the energy necessary to accommodate them.
Microsoft recently signed a power purchase agreement for its Pennsylvania data centers, large enough to justify reopening the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Why do you need so much power?
High-performance graphics processing units, used to perform the complex calculations needed for AI, consume electricity, as do the computer servers in which they are housed. As AI models “learn” and become more sophisticated, their energy consumption increases. There is also no downtime in an AI facility, which needs huge cooling units to maintain optimal temperatures.
PSC fast-tracks Entergy’s proposal. At its Nov. 18 meeting, the commission voted to hire an outside law firm and consulting group to review the three new plants by Oct. 25, 2025.
“The Public Service Commission now holds the key to ensuring that the power we need to deliver these types of projects remains efficient and cost-effective,” Landry said. “So today is the day of the party.”