It’s been one year since we broke ground on our Richland Parish Data Center in Louisiana, which will house our largest multi-gigawatt AI training cluster, Hyperion. Once operational, this data center will play a vital role in supporting our technologies and accelerating our progress toward personal superintelligence. Today, we’re excited to share updates on the investments we’ve made as a positive member of the Richland Parish community.
Creating Local Economic Impact
When we began construction, we committed to supporting the local economy by partnering with regional businesses and sourcing labor and materials locally. Over the last year alone, we’ve contracted more than $875 million with Louisiana businesses, driving local economic growth and supporting job creation. The buildout of the Richland Parish Data Center is led by three general contractors — Turner Construction Company, DPR Construction, and Mortensen Construction — which have been instrumental in hiring skilled trade workers across our four million square-foot campus and engaging with local businesses.
We’re proud to work with more than 160 Louisiana businesses (84% of which are local to Northeast Louisiana) that support the data center’s construction with electric, paving, utility work and more, as well as dozens of local food vendors who provide daily meals on site. We expect our construction team’s partnerships with local businesses to grow as part of our multi-billion-dollar investment in the State of Louisiana. To date, we have supported 3,700 construction workers and expect to reach a peak workforce of 5,000 by June 2026. Once completed, the data center will support more than 500 operational jobs like electricians, HVAC specialists, server and network techs, safety and security experts, and engineers.
“Meta’s decision to invest here has done more than bring a world-class project to Louisiana — it is activating entire ecosystems. Over the past year, we’ve seen local contractors, technology firms, and service providers across the state expand their teams and capabilities to support this project. That’s what progress looks like. Projects lifting entire communities and sectors, and reinforcing that Louisiana is a place where companies big and small can grow together,” said Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois.
Prioritizing Energy and Water Efficiency
We’re proud to call the communities in which we have data centers home, and beyond supporting jobs and businesses there, we strive to be good neighbors. Across all of our data centers, we work closely with the local electric utility to plan for and meet our energy needs and ensure we pay for the energy and related infrastructure we use so that other customers’ electricity bills don’t increase as a result of our data center. In Louisiana, we worked closely with Entergy to provide additional protection for customers, which projects that the electricity payments for the Richland Parish Data Center will cut both grid upgrade customer costs and storm charges by about 10%, resulting in $650 million in customer savings over 15 years. We are also contributing $15 million to Entergy’s customer assistance program, which provides bill payment assistance to low-income customers. As part of our broader work to add new energy to the local grid we are supporting three new clean energy projects in Louisiana, and additional projects will be announced as the data center gets closer to operation.
We are also driving water efficiency in our data center operations and investing in local water restoration projects that will return 100% of the Richland Parish Data Center’s water consumption to the Boeuf, Tensas, and Lower Mississippi watersheds. In 2025, we expanded our partnerships with Resource Environmental Solutions and Ducks Unlimited to support five water restoration projects restoring degraded wetlands, improving water quality, and enhancing ecosystems.
Investing in the Communities Where We Operate
In the area surrounding the Richland Parish Data Center, we’re expanding our investment to more than $300 million to help improve local infrastructure including roads, water, and wastewater systems. In partnership with the Richland Revitalization Board, we’re also committing $300,000 to support projects in Richland Parish’s three municipalities — Rayville, Delhi, and Mangham — that are focused on improving public parks and restoring the parish’s most iconic establishments.
In addition, we’re supporting senior services at the Richland Voluntary Council on Aging, facility upgrades at the Northeast Louisiana Veteran’s Cemetery, the robotics program at the Delhi Charter School, and mixed reality workforce development at the Richland Parish Schools. Lastly, we’ve launched our Data Center Community Action Grant Program in Richland Parish and grant recipients will be announced in spring 2026.
As we continue building Hyperion over the next several years, local workers can learn about skilled trade opportunities at RichlandParishDataCenter.com and stay updated on the project through our Facebook Page.
