Meta planning big data center in Louisiana
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The site of the planned data center in Richland Parish, La. Photo: Courtesy of Louisiana Economic Development
Meta Platforms is planning to build a multibillion-dollar data center in northern Louisiana, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Louisiana has emerged as an attractive area for data center campuses as Big Tech searches for new regions outside of energy-constrained hubs.
Zoom in: The project, dubbed "Project Sucre," is proposed to sit on 2,250 agricultural acres in Richland Parish, about 125 miles east of Shreveport, according to state filings.
- The filings list Laidley, LLC as the company coordinating the project.
- According to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, Laidley is a business entity associated with Meta, which will operate the data center.
- Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, declined to comment.
By the numbers: According to a term sheet between Laidley and the Northwest Louisiana Finance Authority, capital investment into the data center campus could be between $5 billion and over $10 billion. The term sheet estimates the project could create between 300 and 500 jobs.
- A data center project of that size requires substantial power to run it. Evidence of additional grid capacity coming to the project site appeared in a filing last month.
- Entergy, the energy company that serves 3 million customers across the region, filed an application through its Louisiana affiliate to build 2.23 GW of natural gas capacity to serve what it calls a "significant" customer. Entergy does not name the customer in the filing.
- The filing says that one of the gas plants supplying part of that capacity is planned to be built next to its customer's Richland Parish data center site. According to the source with direct knowledge of the matter, the unnamed Entergy customer in the filing is Meta.
- Entergy and Meta declined to comment on the filing.
Zoom out: This summer, Louisiana passed a bill that enables state and local tax rebates on the sale of data center equipment in the state.
- The rebates apply to data centers with at least $200 million in capital invested, and at least 50 jobs created.
- "We've seen quite a turnaround in our pipeline of potential large hyperscaler level deals in Louisiana," said Josh Fleig, the chief innovation officer for the Louisiana Economic Development. Fleig declined to confirm that Meta is the company building the Richland Parish campus.
Zoom in: Big Tech is also looking at Louisiana because it has two nuclear power plants generating between 12% to 16% of the state's power.
- Nuclear has become an attractive source of clean baseload power for data center operators.
- Louisiana's power grid is mostly powered by natural gas, which is a cleaner source than coal.
The big picture: Competition among Big Tech giants to train and run AI models is red hot.
- That tension, along with Meta's vast scale, has pushed the company toward a constant need for more data center capacity. The company has procured 12 GW of clean energy, enough to power a major U.S. city, including 100 MW of solar in Louisiana.
- Meta has 26 data centers either in operation or under construction.
What's next: The Louisiana Public Service Commission has a hearing on Nov. 20 to vote on a proposal to hire an outside consultant and a law firm to review Entergy's application, as well as a request to review the application by October 2025.
- For Meta, next steps include securing permits for the project and finalizing terms of the deal.
