META announced on Wednesday that it would build a data center in the US, with its headquarters in Indiana. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company is racing to secure massive amounts of energy to power up its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts. The company announced that the data center in Indiana will be designed to deliver 1 gigawatt of electrical capacity once operational. The investment for the ambitious data center is $10 billion, and a handful of US gridline firms will be put to work.
This comes as a major shift, as Amazon and Microsoft announced in December to invest $53 billion to build data centers in India. They plan to expand their footprint in cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune. While Amazon pledged to invest $17.5 billion in India, Microsoft announced it would invest $35. billion. However, META will power up its data centers in the US, giving leverage to the White House’s ‘Make in America’ policy.
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META is sticking to the US and not outsoaring its data centers and other operational facilities. In November, it announced to invest $600 billion in the US infrastructure and jobs, over the course of three years. The firm’s premises will use energy to power up its AI ambitions, which is equivalent to 800,000 homes. Power grid firms would benefit the most from the investment, and could be the next stock sector to watch out for.
Rachel Peterson, META’s Vice President for data centers, told Reuters that the Indiana facility could be operational by 2027-28. “We’re going to be pushing a lot of capacity through construction very quickly at this site,” said Peterson. She confirmed that Meta has already signed contracts with power suppliers to upgrade the required infrastructure. However, environmental activists are urging officials to stop the facility as it threatens everyday homes to remain without power. The facility also impacts the environment and contributes to global warming.
