(Sharecast News) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms has reported that an expansion to its enormous data centre in Richland Parish, Louisiana, is now costing nearly double its original estimate.
The company announced on Monday that the Hyperion facility will increase to 5GW of compute capacity to support training of LLMs (large ​language models), up from the original 2GW.

The project cost was originally estimated at $27bn, but it has now topped $50bn, making it one of the world's largest AI infrastructure investments ever.

According to Meta, local businesses have already received over $1.6bn in contracts from Meta since building first started in December 2024.

The expansion, which is expected to provide over 1,000 job, also includes over $1bn to be spent on local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems.

Meanwhile, Meta's agreement with Entergy will fund seven new natural gas-fueled generating plants, three grid-scale batteries, nuclear uprates, and other purchased power, the company said.

Last year, teachers in Richland Parish received annual bonuses of $10,000 as a result of tax revenues from the data centre project. This year, that rises to $50,000.

Meta shares were down 1.3% at $660.42 by 1655 BST.

• News Channel