Introduction

On July 20 2025, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the construction of Hyperion, an AI data center in Louisiana rated at 5 gigawatts (GW) capacity, equivalent to powering most of Manhattan. The project forms part of Meta’s $10 billion AI infrastructure expansion, which includes a separate 1 GW supercluster called Prometheus in Ohio, slated for 2026.

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“We need computational power at a scale that matches our AI ambitions—which is why we’re building Hyperion,” Zuckerberg said on Threads. The facility is expected to fuel Meta’s large multimodal model training while accelerating research in self-supervised learning, computer vision, and content moderation.

Why it matters now

• AI scalability arms race: 5 GW is unprecedented—Meta is investing heavily to lead in model size and complexity.
• Infrastructure as advantage: With both Hyperion and Prometheus, Meta signals it can compete with hyperscalers and purpose-built AI providers.
• Ecosystem ripple: Massive power draws (and water usage) may spark sustainability debates and regulatory scrutiny.

Call-out

Hyperion will soak up as much power as a small city,built purely to power AI.

Business implications

• AI researchers gain access to frontier infrastructure capable of training trillion-parameter models.
• Cloud operators may feel pricing pressure as Meta internalizes compute costs.
• Communities & regulators will demand transparency on energy, water usage, and environmental impact.

Looking ahead

Meta expects Hyperion to bring two GW online by 2030, scaling to 5 GW “in the coming years.” Prometheus, its first AI supercluster, is on track for launch in 2026 in Ohio. Meanwhile, CoreWeave and Google are racing to build competing multi-GW AI campuses,marking a power and compute arms race.

The upshot: With Hyperion, Meta stakes its claim in the AI supercompute era,leveraging infrastructure might to accelerate model training, outpace rivals, and redefine its competitive moat.

Source: TechCrunch report on Meta’s Hyperion AI center, July 14, 2025.