- Meta to receive $3.3 billion in tax breaks for Louisiana data center
- The company will not pay sales tax on GPU purchases for the site.
- The number of natural gas turbine plants needed to power the campus triples
Across the United States, AI data centers are being planned and built on a scale never seen before, and many states are attracting new investment by offering generous tax breaks.
Meta’s Hyperion campus, which will cost about $10 billion, will give the company $3.3 billion in tax breaks, according to a Sherwood News analysis.
The campus will cover 2,250 acres of Richland Parish, Louisiana or, as Mark Zuckerberg boasted, a site that will be “so large that it would cover a significant portion of Manhattan.”
Data centers are the new gentrification
Before the data center was announced, Richland Parish was experiencing a gradual decline in its agricultural industry, with farms dropping 11% between 2017 and 2022. For a county experiencing an economic downturn, the opportunity for such an investment is too good to pass up.
The Hyperion site was announced in January 2025, and by September of the same year, home prices in Richland Parish had increased more than 170%. While residents in the vicinity of the site can now own properties worth significantly more than their purchase price, updated tax assessments could force them to sell.
The average weekly wage for a Richland Parish resident in the third quarter of 2025 was just $870, or just over $41,000 per year, well below the 2025 U.S. average of $63,795 and one of the lowest average wages in the U.S. The rapid rise in housing costs is likely driving local residents out of the area, with the data center acting as a substitute for new era for gentrification. Once completed, the site is expected to contribute just 500 long-term operational jobs.
The Hyperion campus has also required the construction of new power generation sites. Entergy Louisiana, the energy provider contracted to supply electricity to Meta’s Hyperion site, was to build three new natural gas turbine plants. However, the Louisiana Public Utilities Commission (LPSC) has since approved a fast-track request to triple the number of plants.
The approved application has since faced numerous petitions from other energy providers, along with the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The new gas turbine plants will add another 5,200 megawatts of fossil fuel-powered power generation to the existing 2,262 megawatts already under construction for the Hyperion campus.
Natural gas turbine sites are known for the noise level they generate, with larger sites having a noise profile similar to that of a commercial airport. There have also been numerous complaints from residents living near data centers who have experienced nausea, dizziness, and other symptoms associated with the hidden effects of infrasound.
Through Fortune
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