Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build large AI data centers in the United States.
Zuckerberg said the first multigigawa data center called Prometheus is expected to go live in 2026.
He said one of the sites will cover almost the size of Manhattan (59.1 square kilometers / 22.8 square miles).
Meta has made substantial investments in its efforts to develop what is called “super smart” technology, and it says it will likely surpass the smartest humans.
The company made the bulk of its money from online advertising, generating more than $160 billion in revenue in 2024.
In an article on his social media platform, Zuckerberg said Meta is building several multi-gigawatt clusters, and one called Hyperion can scale up to five GW in a few years.
“We also built more Titan Groups. One of them covers a significant part of the Manhattan footprint,” he added.
Zuckerberg said Prometheus will be built in New Albany, Ohio, while Hyperion will be built in Louisiana, and is expected to be fully online in 2030.
He said Mehta would “invest hundreds of billions of dollars…build super smart” and gave “a name that suits its scale and impact.”
“Obviously, Zuckerberg intends to spend his way at the top of AI Heap,” Karl Freund, chief analyst at Cambrian AI Research, told the BBC.
“The talent he recruits will be able to use some of the best AI hardware in the world,” Freund added.
According to Reuters, the dollar stock price was 1% higher after the announcement. The stock has risen more than 20% so far this year.
There are at least 10,000 data centers hosting clouds around the world – cloud servers that store digital information – most are located in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.
AI-powered data centers are extremely energy and water. One study estimates that by 2027, these centers can consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water worldwide. Can use as much water as the small bottle you buy from the corner store.
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