Meta is presently constructing out an information middle, referred to as Hyperion, which the corporate expects to provide its new AI lab with 5 gigawatts (GW) of computational energy, CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in a Monday post on Threads.
The announcement marks Meta’s historical facts transfer to get forward of OpenAI and Google within the AI race. After beforehand poaching high expertise to run Meta Superintelligence Lab, together with former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and former Secure Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross, Meta now appears to be turning its consideration to the huge computational energy wanted to coach frontier AI fashions.
Zuckerberg mentioned Hyperion’s footprint will probably be giant sufficient to cowl most of Manhattan. Meta spokesperson Ashley Gabriel informed TechCrunch by way of e-mail that Hyperion will probably be positioned in Louisiana, possible in Richland Parish where Meta previously announced a $10 billion data center development. Gabriel says Meta plans to deliver two gigawatts of knowledge middle capability on-line by 2030 with Hyperion, however that it could scale to 5 gigawatts in a number of years.
Zuckerberg additionally famous that Meta plans to deliver a 1 GW tremendous cluster, referred to as Prometheus, on-line in 2026, making it one of many first tech firms to manage an AI knowledge middle of this measurement. Gabriel says Prometheus is positioned in New Albany, Ohio.
Meta’s AI knowledge middle build-out appears prone to make the corporate extra aggressive with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic in its capability to coach and serve main AI fashions. It’s attainable the trouble might additionally assist Meta entice extra expertise, who could also be drawn to work at an organization with the computational must compete within the AI race.
Collectively, Prometheus and Hyperion will absorb sufficient vitality to energy tens of millions of properties, which might pull important quantities of electrical energy and water from neighboring communities. Considered one of Meta’s knowledge middle initiatives in Newton County, Georgia, has already caused the water taps to run dry in some residents’ homes, The New York Occasions reported Monday.
Different AI knowledge middle initiatives could trigger comparable issues for individuals dwelling close to them. AI hyperscaler CoreWeave is planning an information middle enlargement that’s projected to double the electricity needs of a metropolis close to Dallas, Texas, in keeping with Bloomberg.
However, tech firms are decided to construct out huge knowledge middle initiatives to energy their AI ambitions. Different notable efforts embrace OpenAI’s Stargate project with Oracle and SoftBank, in addition to xAI’s Colossus supercomputer.
The Trump administration has largely championed the tech business’s AI knowledge middle buildout. President Donald Trump helped OpenAI announce its Stargate undertaking, and has since spoken about efforts to increase America’s AI infrastructure.
In a column featured in The Economist on Monday, U.S. Secretary of Power Chris Wright referred to as for the U.S. to “lead the next major energy-intensive frontier: artificial intelligence.” He famous that AI transforms electrical energy into the “most beneficial output conceivable: intelligence,” and that the federal authorities would speed up the manufacturing of vitality derived from coal, nuclear, geothermal, and pure fuel.
With the assist of federal officers, the AI business appears poised to take in a lot of America’s vitality within the years to return. Specialists estimate that data centers could account for 20% of America’s energy consumption by 2030, up from simply 2.5% in 2022. With out quickly elevated vitality manufacturing, that might trigger much more issues for communities.