Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced on Wednesday plans to invest $10 billion in building its largest data centre to date, a state-of-the-art facility in Richland Parish, Louisiana. The hyperscale data centre will support the processing demands of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, as per a recent report by Reuters.

The Louisiana data centre, designed to handle vast amounts of data required for AI technologies, will run on electricity matched entirely by renewable energy. Meta is partnering with Entergy, a utility company operating in Louisiana and neighbouring states, to meet its energy needs, explains the Reuters report.

Entergy has two nuclear power plants in Louisiana and has experience supporting large-scale tech facilities, such as Amazon's upcoming cloud services facility in Mississippi.

Meta's investment in Louisiana comes on the heels of its announcement on Tuesday that it is seeking proposals from nuclear energy developers to help meet its AI energy needs and sustainability goals. The company aims to add 1 to 4 gigawatts of new nuclear generation capacity in the United States by the early 2030s.

AI computing has significantly increased energy demands for tech companies, spurring renewed interest in nuclear power. However, challenges such as regulatory bottlenecks, ageing nuclear infrastructure, uranium supply concerns, and local opposition may slow the rollout of new reactors.

Construction of the Louisiana facility is expected to begin in December 2024 and continue through 2030, making it a long-term investment in Meta's growing AI capabilities, further adds the report.