Meta has announced plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build some of the largest artificial intelligence data centres in the world.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads that the company will build several multi-gigawatt centres in the United States, including one the size of Manhattan.
The first centre, named Prometheus, is under construction in New Albany, Ohio, and is expected to be ready by 2026. Another one, called Hyperion, will be built in Louisiana and may be fully operational by 2030.
Zuckerberg explained that the centres will support Meta’s mission to develop what it calls superintelligence, a form of AI that could think faster than humans.
“We’re building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” he wrote.
Meta made over 160 billion dollars in revenue in 2024, mostly from online advertising, and is now pushing hard into AI development.
Karl Freund, an analyst at Cambrian AI Research, told the BBC, “Clearly, Zuckerberg intends to spend his way to the top of the AI heap. The talent he is hiring will have access to some of the best AI hardware in the world.”
Meta shares reportedly rose by 1 percent after the announcement, and the stock has gained over 20 percent this year.
However, experts warn that AI data centres require huge amounts of energy and water. A recent study said such centres could use 1.7 trillion gallons of water worldwide by 2027.
