Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is preparing for one of the largest infrastructure investments in tech history — committing hundreds of billions of dollars to build a sprawling network of AI-optimized data centres across the United States.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO, announced that the initiative will include several multi-gigawatt “titan clusters” designed to power the company’s ambitious goal of creating “superintelligence” — AI that, in his words, can “out-think the smartest humans.”
From Social Media to Superintelligence
Meta’s history is rooted in social networking and digital advertising. In 2024 alone, the company earned more than $160 billion in revenue, the majority from targeted ads. But as the AI race intensifies, Meta is clearly signaling a shift — from being simply a social media giant to becoming a leader in advanced artificial intelligence research and deployment.
Zuckerberg’s latest announcement moves beyond AI tools like Meta AI for chat and image generation. Instead, the company is positioning itself to develop general-purpose AI models on a scale rarely seen outside of defense or national research programs.
The Titans: Prometheus and Hyperion
Two of the flagship facilities — Prometheus and Hyperion — are already on the roadmap.
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Prometheus will be built in New Albany, Ohio, and is expected to be the first multi-gigawatt AI data centre to come online, targeted for 2026.
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Hyperion, planned for Louisiana, will eventually scale up to five gigawatts of computing power and is projected to be fully operational by 2030.
For context, a single gigawatt can power roughly 750,000 homes. These clusters will draw on a massive supply of electricity, advanced cooling systems, and next-generation networking to handle the astronomical processing demands of large-scale AI models.
Manhattan-Sized Mega Centres
Zuckerberg emphasized the scale of the facilities, noting that one cluster will cover an area nearly the size of Manhattan — about 59 square kilometers (22.8 square miles).
This level of physical footprint not only dwarfs traditional data centres but also signals the unprecedented hardware density Meta is planning. With the world’s most advanced GPUs and AI accelerators inside, these sites will be capable of training AI models with trillions of parameters — the kind of computational horsepower needed for artificial general intelligence research.
The Financial Commitment
While Zuckerberg did not reveal exact figures, his reference to “hundreds of billions of dollars” suggests Meta’s AI investment could rival — or even surpass — the capital expenditures of other Big Tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google in recent years.
Karl Freund, principal analyst at Cambrian AI Research, described the move bluntly:
“Clearly, Zuckerberg intends to spend his way to the top of the AI heap. The talent he is hiring will have access to some of the best AI hardware in the world.”
Meta’s aggressive push into AI mirrors similar high-stakes bets across Silicon Valley, where the belief is that whoever masters large-scale, general-purpose AI first will dominate the next era of technology.
Superintelligence: The Endgame
Zuckerberg’s use of the term “superintelligence” is notable — and controversial. In AI research, superintelligence refers to an artificial system that surpasses human intelligence across virtually all domains, including creativity, problem-solving, and social reasoning.
While many researchers see this as a distant goal — if it’s achievable at all — Meta’s framing suggests the company is treating it as a tangible, near-term target. This aligns with its ongoing development of AI models like LLaMA and its focus on multimodal systems capable of understanding and generating text, images, and other forms of data simultaneously.
Data Centres: The New AI Battleground
The scale and location of Meta’s upcoming facilities highlight a growing geopolitical and environmental dimension to AI infrastructure.
Geopolitical significance:
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Hosting these mega-clusters in the U.S. ensures Meta retains sovereignty over its AI compute resources, shielding them from foreign regulation or supply chain instability.
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It also aligns with growing pressure from Washington for critical AI research to remain on U.S. soil.
Environmental impact:
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Multi-gigawatt facilities consume enormous amounts of electricity and water for cooling.
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Meta will likely face scrutiny over how it sources renewable energy and mitigates environmental effects, especially in light of increasing public concern over the carbon footprint of AI.
The Business Implications
For investors, Meta’s AI bet is both risky and potentially transformative. The company’s stock rose 1% following the announcement, with shares up 20% year-to-date. The market’s initial optimism likely reflects confidence in Meta’s track record of scaling technology — from building Facebook into a global network to acquiring and growing Instagram and WhatsApp.
However, the path to monetizing “superintelligence” is far less clear than selling targeted ads. Potential revenue streams could include:
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Enterprise AI services for industries like healthcare, finance, and logistics.
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AI cloud hosting for third-party developers.
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Immersive virtual experiences in the metaverse, powered by real-time AI generation.
Why the U.S.?
Meta’s choice of Ohio and Louisiana is strategic:
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Both offer abundant land and access to reliable power grids.
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Proximity to major fiber-optic backbones ensures ultra-low latency for data transmission.
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State governments in both regions are known for offering tax incentives to attract large tech infrastructure projects.
Competition Heats Up
Meta isn’t alone in this AI infrastructure arms race:
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Microsoft is expanding its Azure AI supercomputing clusters in partnership with OpenAI.
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Google continues to develop its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) for AI workloads.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) is investing heavily in AI-optimized data centre capacity.
Zuckerberg’s clear message is that Meta will not be left behind — and may even leapfrog its rivals by sheer scale of investment.
The Road Ahead
Prometheus is scheduled to come online in 2026, but it will be years before the full network of titan clusters is operational. In the meantime, Meta’s AI teams will continue scaling up training on existing infrastructure, while preparing to transition to the massive capacity of Prometheus and Hyperion.
If successful, this could mark a turning point in the AI race — with Meta holding one of the largest private compute capabilities in the world.
The bet is massive, the risks are high, and the payoff, if realized, could cement Meta’s place not just in social media history, but in the very foundation of the AI age.
Bottom line: Mark Zuckerberg is going all-in on AI, wagering that superintelligence — and the data centres that make it possible — will define the next era of technology. And if his vision comes to life, the footprints of Prometheus and Hyperion may one day be remembered as the places where the future of human-AI collaboration was built.
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