Locator: 48924META.
Updates
August 24, 2025: link here.
In December, construction began on Meta’s biggest-yet data center: a $10 billion complex of nine buildings, housing bank upon bank of servers that will take up over 4 million square feet, an area larger than Disneyland.
Original Post
Specs:
Meta’s $10 billion data center will need roughly three times the amount of electricity that the city of New Orleans uses in a year, and increase Entergy's electric needs in the state by around 30%. With the commission's approval, the utility can now begin constructing the three new plants and other transmission infrastructure.
Two of the electricity plants will be located near the data center in Richland Parish and a third in St. Charles Parish.
The power plants are expected to come online in 2028 and 2029, and at full strength, they’ll generate 2.25 gigawatts of electricity. Ultimately, the AI data center could draw 5 gigawatts of power as it’s expanded.
Three Mile Island nuclear generating station:
- nameplate capacity: 819 MW (0.819 GW)
- cost
- $1.6 billion at time of construction in 2007 dollars
- $2 billion in 2023 dollars
META's Louisiana nameplate capacity:
- 2,250 MW (2.25 GW)
- natural gas generating plant cost:
- recent estimates ranging from approximately $700 to $2,500 per kW (or $700,000 to $2,500,000 per MW)
- $2 million x 2,250 MW = $4,500 million = $4.5 billion
Back of the envelope:
- 2250 / 819 = 2.75x
- 5000 / 819 = 6.1x
Another comparison:
The Copper Mountain Solar Facility is fully operational, forming one of the largest solar generation complexes in the United States with a total capacity exceeding 1 gigawatt (GW) across its five phases.
The latest phase, Copper Mountain V, entered commercial operation in March 2021, expanding the facility in Boulder City, Nevada. The complex is co-located with several other projects in the Eldorado Valley, with RWE Clean Energy being a primary owner.
All this for one META data center. And Stargate will be much bigger?
- market cap: trending toward $2 trillion -- that's trillion with "tr"
- Meta's most recent reported cash and cash equivalents are approximately $47.07 billion as of June 30, 2025, which includes both cash and short-term investments. This figure shows a significant decline year-over-year from over $78 billion.
One last thought: it's going to take really, really deep pockets to compete with these magnificent seven, and the tech twenty.
