Meta secures $27B deal to build massive AI data center

Meta has struck a $27 billion financing deal with Blue Owl Capital, an alternative asset manager, to fund its largest data center project globally, marking the company’s biggest-ever private capital deal. The Louisiana facility, called Hyperion, will deliver more than 2 gigawatts of compute capacity for training large language models—the AI technology behind tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. This positions Meta to compete in the escalating AI infrastructure arms race where tech giants are projected to spend $400 billion this year.

The big picture: Major technology companies are pouring unprecedented capital into AI infrastructure as they race to build the computing power needed for next-generation artificial intelligence systems.

• Morgan Stanley estimates that Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and CoreWeave are on track to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year.
• OpenAI recently signed deals potentially costing over $1 trillion to secure about 26 gigawatts of computing capacity—enough to power roughly 20 million U.S. homes.

Key details: Under the partnership structure, Meta retains about 20% equity in the Louisiana project while Blue Owl Capital-managed funds own the majority stake.

• Blue Owl contributed roughly $7 billion in cash to the joint venture, with Meta receiving a one-time payout of about $3 billion.
• The Richland Parish facility will support training of large language models, which require massive computing power to process and learn from enormous amounts of text data.
• Meta has signed leases for the facility with a four-year initial term and expects the project to create more than 500 jobs once operational.

Strategic context: The deal comes as Meta reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs following internal challenges and market reception issues.

• Meta restructured in June after senior staff departures and poor reception for its open-source Llama 4 model.
• CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in July that Meta would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers for Superintelligence.

What they’re saying: Industry executives frame the project as essential for meeting AI infrastructure demands.

• “This is an ambitious project that reflects the scale and speed required to power the next generation of AI infrastructure,” said Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz, Co-CEOs of Blue Owl.
• Meta CFO Susan Li called the deal “a bold step forward” for the company’s AI ambitions.