Meta wants to build data center half the size of Manhattan

In 2025, US companies will continue to compete to see who can build the largest data centers for training AI algorithms. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the plans for 2025 before the announcement of the business figures: Meta wants to invest 60 billion to 65 billion US dollars – mostly in data centers.

By the end of the year, the company plans to operate more than 1.3 million GPU accelerators, including those already purchased. Several hundred thousand new ones will be added. Together with the necessary processors and other infrastructure, the new 2025 hardware alone is expected to absorb more than one gigawatt of electrical power. Meta usually buys its accelerators from both Nvidia and AMD.

To create more space for new hardware, Meta is building a new data center in Rishland Parish, Louisiana. It is to be designed for two gigawatts – Zuck does not specify where the energy will come from. The floor plan is said to be so large that it would roughly fill half of Manhattan. The district in New York City is 59 km² in size.

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Hundreds of billions of US dollars

Amazon, Google and Microsoft last revealed their plans in the fall. According to an analyst conference at the time, Amazon expected capital expenditure of around 75 billion US dollars in the whole of 2024 – and this is set to rise further in 2025. Google's parent company Alphabet forecast capital expenditure of around USD 52 billion in 2024 and also said it wanted to spend more in 2025.

Microsoft calculates in fiscal years that are offset by half a year to the calendar. From July 2024 to the end of June 2025, Microsoft plans to spend 80 billion US dollars, mostly on AI data centers. The four industry heavyweights together could reach 300 billion US dollars this year.

The companies are under pressure because of the Stargate project: with the support of the US government, OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle want to invest 500 billion US dollars in AI development over the coming years.

In addition, the Chinese company Deepseek is currently causing panic in the US AI landscape because it wants to train its own model much more cheaply and efficiently than the competition.

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(mma)