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Title: Meta's Massive AI Data Center Is Stressing Out a Louisiana Community

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/24/2212...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A massive data center for
Meta's AI will likely lead to rate hikes for Louisiana customers, but Meta
wants to keep the details under wraps. Holly Ridge is a rural community
bisected by US Highway 80, gridded with farmland, with a big creek -- it is
literally named Big Creek -- running through it. It is home to rice and grain
mills and an elementary school and a few houses. Soon, it will also be home
to Meta's massive, 4 million square foot AI data center hosting thousands of
perpetually humming servers that require billions of watts of energy to
power. And that energy-guzzling infrastructure will be partially paid for by
Louisiana residents. The plan is part of what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said
would be "a defining year for AI." On Threads, Zuckerberg boasted that his
company was "building a 2GW+ datacenter that is so large it would cover a
significant part of Manhattan," posting a map of Manhattan along with the
data center overlaid. Zuckerberg went on to say that over the coming years,
AI "will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation,
and extend American technology leadership. Let's go build! " What Zuckerberg
did not mention is that "Let's go build" refers not only to the massive data
center but also three new Meta-subsidized, gas power plants and a
transmission line to fuel it serviced by Entergy Louisiana, the region's
energy monopoly. Key details about Meta's investments with the data center
remain vague, and Meta's contracts with Entergy are largely cloaked from
public scrutiny. But what is known is the $10 billion data center has been
positioned as an enormous economic boon for the area -- one that politicians
bent over backward to facilitate -- and Meta said it will invest $200 million
into "local roads and water infrastructure." A January report from NOLA.com
said that the the state had rewritten zoning laws, promised to change a law
so that it no longer had to put state property up for public bidding, and
rewrote what was supposed to be a tax incentive for broadband internet meant
to bridge the digital divide so that it was only an incentive for data
centers, all with the goal of luring in Meta. But Entergy Louisiana's
residential customers, who live in one of the poorest regions of the state,
will see their utility bills increase to pay for Meta's energy
infrastructure, according to Entergy's application. Entergy estimates that
amount will be small and will only cover a transmission line, but advocates
for energy affordability say the costs could balloon depending on whether
Meta agrees to finish paying for its three gas plants 15 years from now. The
short-term rate increases will be debated in a public hearing before state
regulators that has not yet been scheduled. The Alliance for Affordable
Energy called it a "black hole of energy use," and said "to give perspective
on how much electricity the Meta project will use: Meta's energy needs are
roughly 2.3x the power needs of Orleans Parish ... it's like building the
power impact of a large city overnight in the middle of nowhere."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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