Meta announced a $27 billion partnership to build an artificial intelligence data center

Meta says it has entered into a joint venture agreement with Blue Owl Capital. The $27 billion deal is for the expansion of the massive Hyperion Meta data center in Louisiana.

According to CNBC, the asset management company Blue Owl will own 80% of this joint project, and Meta will retain 20% of the shares and will oversee the construction and management of this data center. This data center is currently under construction in Richland Parish, Louisiana.

Meta builds artificial intelligence data center in Louisiana

As part of this partnership, Blue Owl has invested about $7 billion in cash, and Meta has received $3 billion so far. Meta said in a statement that the partnership will provide the speed and flexibility needed to build data centers and support the company’s long-term AI goals.

Meta announced in December that it had chosen Louisiana to host its largest data center. The construction of this data center is underway on a land of approximately 1,700 football fields and is expected to be completed by 2030.

Of course, there are still concerns about the power consumption of this data center. Local utility Entergy told CNBC that the new data center could use about twice as much electricity as the city of New Orleans on peak days.

Tech giants are expanding their data centers to support AI operations. Meta, Google, Amazon, and OpenAI are among the companies that have devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to the development of artificial intelligence data centers.

These investments have also expanded outside the United States. Last week, Google announced that it plans to invest $15 billion to build several data centers in South India. It will be Google’s largest artificial intelligence center outside the United States.