Washington, D.C.: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into building massive AI data centres in the US, marking a bold step in the company’s initiative to lead the race toward artificial superintelligence.
The first of these, a multi-gigawatt facility named Prometheus, will be constructed in New Albany, Ohio, and is expected to go live in 2026. A second centre, called Hyperion, will be located in Louisiana and could scale up to five gigawatts of computing capacity over the coming years, with full operations slated for 2030.
Zuckerberg stated that, “We’re building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” referring to one site that will span nearly 59 square kilometres, roughly the size of Manhattan.
Meta is naming its new facilities after figures of myth and power like Prometheus and Hyperion, signalling the scale and ambition of the project. The investment is part of the tech giant’s broader push to build superintelligence, which Zuckerberg described as a technology capable of outperforming the smartest humans.
Meta, whose primary revenue source remains online advertising, generated over $160 billion in revenue in 2024. Now, it is repositioning itself at the centre of AI infrastructure with some of the most powerful hardware systems in the world.
Karl Freund, principal analyst at Cambrian AI Research, remarked that, “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.”
Following the announcement, Meta shares rose by 1 percent, continuing a positive trend with the stock up over 20 percent so far this year.
Currently, the world hosts more than 10,000 data centres, the majority located in the US, UK, and Germany. However, the rapid rise of AI has sparked environmental concerns. AI-driven data centres are extremely energy and water-intensive. Research suggests they could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027.
As Meta scales up its infrastructure to support increasingly advanced AI systems, the company will likely face mounting scrutiny over environmental impact, even as it races to stay ahead in a competitive and fast-evolving sector.
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