Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, is going big on artificial intelligence. The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, just announced that the company is building a massive new data center, called Hyperion, to fuel its next generation of powerful AI tools.
According to Zuckerberg, Hyperion will eventually produce five gigawatts (GW) of computing power, enough to power millions of homes. To put it into perspective, it’ll take up as much space as most of Manhattan!
The Hyperion center will be based in Louisiana, and Meta plans to get 2 GW up and running by 2030, with the full 5 GW goal reached in the years after. This mega facility is part of Meta’s race to outdo other AI giants like OpenAI and Google.
Zuckerberg also revealed a second powerful AI hub called Prometheus, which will go live in 2026 in Ohio. Prometheus alone will deliver 1 GW of power, and when combined with Hyperion, it means Meta will have an enormous amount of computing strength at its fingertips — great for AI, but potentially tough for the environment.
Big AI needs big power. And with more data centers popping up, energy and water use is skyrocketing. One Meta project in Georgia reportedly caused local water taps to run dry! Some worry these huge AI centers will strain local communities, especially as they grow rapidly across the U.S.
Even so, tech companies are racing to build these supercenters. OpenAI is working on a massive project called Stargate with Oracle and SoftBank. Elon Musk’s xAI also has a giant Colossus supercomputer in the works.
The U.S. government seems fully on board. Officials like President Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are pushing for America to lead the global AI power race. Wright even wrote that AI turns electricity into “the most valuable output imaginable: intelligence.”
By 2030, AI data centers could use up to 20% of all electricity in America — a huge jump from just 2.5% in 2022. That means without big increases in power supply, more towns could face blackouts, water shortages, and higher bills.
AI is changing the world fast — but it’s also raising big questions about energy, resources, and who pays the price.
