Meta has announced it’s expanding its Richland Parish AI data center to five gigawatts, becoming one of the largest data centers in the world. Work on the 3,200-acre site is underway; and the president of Meta, Dina Powell McCormick, says they anticipate the project will be completed in 2036.
“When you’re building five gigawatts, it’s going to be one of the largest sites, really, in the world; bigger than Manhattan, if you can believe it. And so I think we’re just at the beginning; once it starts going, it really starts to move fast,” McCormick noted.
An estimated 7,500 construction workers are needed to build the Richland Parish data center project. Meta is willing to train many of the workers needed to construct this facility and other data centers for free. McCormick says anyone interested in getting trained for electrical, plumbing and fiber optics should look into Meta’s America’s Workforce Academy.
“It’s a five-week program, that you are paid while you are getting the training to be jobsite-ready. You actually get a license and a guaranteed job on a Meta data center site,” McCormick explained.
Once the facility is constructed, it’s expected to employ 1,000 people. Governor Jeff Landry says this is the kind of job creation he talked about when he ran for office.
“It’s communities that finally get to see a future. It’s young people who can begin to build careers here in Louisiana instead of having to seek those opportunities elsewhere,” Landry said.