Meta's Hyperion Data Center: A Landmark Facility Dominating NYC Landscape

Meta Platforms is building massive data centers, with the largest being Hyperion, a 5GW facility in Louisiana, to achieve its AI ambitions. The campus is expected to be three times the size of the largest town in Richland Parish. The size of Hyperion is meant to dominate the landscape, both culturally and economically, with a graphic by Mark Zuckerberg comparing its size to Manhattan. The use of a cityscape to showcase the idea is reminiscent of futurist visions like Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin for Paris.

Meta Platforms, Inc. is making significant strides in its pursuit of artificial intelligence (AI) by constructing massive data centers, with the most ambitious being Hyperion, a 5-gigawatt (GW) facility in rural Richland Parish, Louisiana. This project is expected to be three times the size of the largest town in the parish, underscoring its monumental scale.

The project, announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is part of the company's broader strategy to achieve "personal superintelligence." Hyperion is set to be the largest data center Meta has ever built, with a planned footprint of approximately 2250 acres and 4 million square feet of buildings [2]. Construction began at the end of 2024 and is expected to continue through 2030, with an interim milestone of 1.5 GW of computational power targeted by the end of 2027 [2].

The Hyperion campus is designed to support Meta's Superintelligence Labs and future model training, aiming to power next-generation AI models and support ambitions for artificial general intelligence (AGI). By vertically integrating its compute infrastructure, Meta seeks independence from public cloud providers, giving it cost control and speed [2].

The project's scale is not merely technological; it also has significant cultural and economic implications. Mark Zuckerberg's graphic comparing the Hyperion campus to a "significant part of Manhattan" is a stark visual representation of the project's magnitude. This use of a cityscape to showcase the idea is reminiscent of futurist visions like Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin for Paris [1].

The construction of Hyperion is accompanied by complex power infrastructure, including a $4 billion gas plant and regional transmission upgrades, raising community and environmental concerns alongside sustainability efforts. Meta's approach to data center provisioning exemplifies a shift in the industry, blending ownership, leasing, and regional power projects to address the insatiable demand for AI compute capacity [2].

Despite the ambitious timeline and scale, Meta is facing challenges. One month after announcing Hyperion, the company announced plans to reorganize its AI group and reportedly paused its ambitious hiring spree. The pause may be a response to broader industry concerns about an AI bubble and the need for more sustainable and efficient data center operations [2].

As Meta continues to invest heavily in AI-optimized data centers, the Hyperion project serves as a testament to the company's commitment to achieving its AI ambitions. However, the project's success will depend on addressing both the technical and societal challenges it presents.

References:
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-08-24/why-is-manhattan-being-crushed-by-this-giant-meta-data-center
[2] https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/hyperscale/article/55310441/ownership-and-power-challenges-in-metas-hyperion-and-prometheus-data-centers