Meta’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has stated the social media big will spend lots of of billions of {dollars} on constructing large AI information centres within the US.
The primary multi-gigawatt information centre, known as Prometheus, is anticipated to come back on-line in 2026, Zuckerberg stated.
He stated one of many websites would cowl an space almost the scale of Manhattan (59.1 sq km/22.8 sq miles).
Meta has invested closely in efforts to develop what it known as “superintelligence” – expertise that it stated might out-think the neatest people.
The corporate, which has made most of its cash from internet advertising, generated greater than $160bn in income in 2024.
In a submit on his social media platform, Threads, Zuckerberg stated Meta was constructing a number of multi-gigawatt clusters, and that one cluster, known as Hyperion, might scale as much as 5 gigawatts over a number of years.
“We’re constructing a number of extra titan clusters as nicely. Simply one in all these covers a major a part of the footprint of Manhattan,” he added.
Prometheus will probably be in-built New Albany, Ohio, whereas Hyperion will probably be in-built Louisiana and is anticipated to be totally on-line by 2030, Zuckerberg stated.
He stated Meta would “make investments lots of of billions of {dollars}… to construct superintelligence” and that the centres had been given “names befitting their scale and influence”.
Karl Freund, principal analyst at Cambrian AI Analysis, advised the BBC, “clearly, Zuckerberg intends to spend his method to the highest of the AI heap”.
“The expertise he’s hiring can have entry to among the finest AI {Hardware} on the earth,” Freund added.
Meta shares had been buying and selling 1% larger following the announcement, Reuters information company reported. The inventory has risen greater than 20% to date this 12 months.
There are a minimum of 10,000 information centres world wide internet hosting the cloud – distant servers that retailer digital data – with most of them situated within the US, adopted by the UK and Germany.
AI-driven information centres are extraordinarily vitality and water intensive. One research estimates that these centres might devour 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027. A single AI question – for instance, a request to ChatGPT – can use about as much water as a small bottle you’d buy from the corner shop.
