5 things you should know about the giant Meta data center in Louisiana

Along the Mississippi Delta in the northeast corner of Louisiana, Meta is building one of the largest artificial intelligence data centers in the world. The tech giant’s project will cost $50 billion and cover roughly six square miles.

An extraordinary level of secrecy was required behind the scenes to pull this off. Utility executives, Louisiana’s governor, state and local officials and representatives from Meta worked on the deal for nine months before it was made public. The speed and secrecy of the project has been trumpeted as a model for the entire tech industry.

To report on the project, New York Times reporters interviewed more than 40 people in Richland Parish, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, New York and Silicon Valley and examined company files, tax records, property records and meeting transcripts.

Here are five takeaways from our reports:

Securing energy supplies was a crucial part of the Meta project.

When Meta employees scoured Louisiana and surrounding states for potential data center sites, it was Louisiana’s largest utility, not state officials, that first pitched the Silicon Valley company to Richland Parish.

Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana’s chief executive, was involved in every step of the process, from securing a tax break for data center equipment to purchasing nearby land and drafting non-disclosure agreements for government officials. The power company’s promise to build dedicated natural gas turbines for the Meta — enough to power the city of New Orleans seven times over — is what separated Louisiana’s bid from those of competing states.

The project was a huge financial boon for Entergy. Meta is now the largest customer in its 112-year history, and its share price has risen more than 50 percent since the project was announced in December 2024.

To avoid roadblocks, Meta and state officials worked in secret.

Local opposition has blocked billions of dollars worth of data center projects across the country. The Meta project had no such problems with opposition – partly because the local community was unaware of the deal until it was completed.

To keep the project out of the public eye, Meta and Entergy used nondisclosure agreements with state and local officials. Even some officials who helped pass legislation to support the project were unaware of its details.

As data centers grow in size, so do their risks.

Tech companies are finding new ways to finance rising data center costs. Instead of paying for the Louisiana data center with its own money, Meta created a separate entity called Beignet LLC to build and own the project. Blue Owl, a Wall Street investment partner, put most of the money into the joint venture. After that, Meta leased a data center from Beignet and ran the financing off its books.

Meta has given itself the option to terminate the lease just four years after construction is completed if it no longer needs it.

The project was so large that insurance companies would not fully insure the facility if it were destroyed by a natural disaster. This deterred potential investors, but Blue Owl was still willing to take the risk.

Opportunity and uncertainty for local residents.

Richland Parish has a population of about 20,000, and many are optimistic about how the data center is changing the area. Construction on the project became its own economy, employing thousands of people.

The project received property and equipment tax credits, so the main source of local revenue generated by the data center is sales tax. This led to bonuses for some local teachers of up to $50,000. Meta is also investing $1 billion in local infrastructure and $5 million in a nearby community college for job training. Upon completion, the data center will employ 1,000 full-time employees.

But as rents in the area rise to accommodate high-paid construction workers, entire trailer parks of local residents have been displaced. Some people became homeless, others moved out of the parish. Real estate developers say the project was a compromise, creating fortunes for some and crowding out others.

Meta’s project in Richland Parish is a blueprint for more like it.

After the state secured a deal with Meta, Gov. Jeff Landry codified the process with an executive order dubbed “Louisiana Lightning Speed” to attract more projects.

The contract clears the state’s way with similar speed and secrecy for other projects. In the case of the Meta data center, that included allowing the Louisiana Energy Commission to skip submitting the project to review by an independent administrative judge to determine whether the project is in the public’s best interest. The state also held no public hearings on the project until it was announced as a done deal.

From the financial engineering to the way the company secured power, Meta’s data center could become a model for other tech giants looking to build massive data centers.

The executive order is already in effect in Louisiana. In February, Amazon announced plans to build $12 billion data centers in the northwest corner of the state.