Meta Platforms (META) is planning to spend $10 billion to build its largest data center ever in Louisiana.
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The new data center will take up four million square feet of industrial space at a site in the southern U.S. state, and will be powered by three natural gas plants that have 2.2 gigawatts of combined capacity. The data center is expected to open in 2030.
Meta Platforms is working with utility Entergy Corp. to develop the massive data center, which will use enough energy to power more than one million homes. The data center will also reportedly provide power to the surrounding community in Louisiana.
Powering AI Models
Meta Platforms says the new data center will be much larger than the company’s other sites, and that it will be used to run and train a growing array of artificial intelligence (AI) models and applications. How many graphics processing units (GPU) the new facility will support is not yet known.
While the newest data center will be powered by natural gas, Meta said it is exploring renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, and is also interested in using nuclear energy at some point. Meta Platforms is investing heavily in AI and has been expanding the number of data centers it uses to process its AI applications.
META stock has risen 74% this year.
Is META Stock a Buy?
The stock of Meta Platforms has a consensus Strong Buy rating among 44 Wall Street analysts. That rating is based on 40 Buy, three Hold, and one Sell recommendations issued in the last three months. The average META price target of $662.62 implies 7.96% upside from current levels.
