Trump: Meta will build a "$50 billion" AI data center in Louisiana
U.S. President Trump stated at a cabinet meeting that Meta plans to build a giant data center in rural Louisiana, with a total investment of up to $50 billion, and showcased a schematic he claimed was provided by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Meta stated last December that the project would invest $10 billion
Local time on Tuesday, U.S. President Trump stated that Meta's plan to build a large data center project in rural Louisiana will have a total investment of $50 billion.
Media reports indicate that Trump expressed shock at the cost of the project during a speech at Tuesday's White House cabinet meeting, noting that the project is currently under construction.
"When they say a factory will cost $50 billion, I say, 'What the hell kind of factory is that?'"
He held up a diagram, claiming it was given to him by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. This diagram superimposed the data center on a map of Manhattan to illustrate its massive scale.
"When you see this, you understand why it's worth $50 billion."
According to media reports, Meta has named the data center "Hyperion," which will have powerful computing capabilities to support digital infrastructure loads, including artificial intelligence.
Trump stated that the reason American companies can now build such large-scale data centers is that "we allow them to build their own power facilities."
When Meta announced last December that it would build its largest data center in Louisiana, it mentioned an investment of over $10 billion and stated that the project could scale to a power capacity of 2,000 megawatts by 2030. In July of this year, Meta indicated that the campus could expand to 5,000 megawatts but did not provide a new investment amount. It is currently unclear what expansion scale Trump's $50 billion refers to. However, media estimates suggest that a 1,000-megawatt AI data center costs about $10 billion.
In June, Meta restructured its artificial intelligence business into "Superintelligence Labs," a significant adjustment made after several executives left and its latest open-source model Llama 4 received lukewarm responses.
Last month, Zuckerberg stated that Meta would invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build multiple large AI data centers to support its "superintelligence" strategy, and he is also accelerating this long-pursued technology by competing for top engineers.
Earlier this month, media reported that Meta had chosen Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) and Blue Owl Capital to lead $29 billion in financing for the Louisiana data center. This financing scale is far ahead of all current funding arrangements related to AI data centers
