Investments in data center development are skyrocketing Image By EPN Staff Key Points Tech and energy companies have announced more than $100 billion in new data centers and grid projects this summer, including Meta’s “Prometheus” (Ohio) and “Hyperion” (Louisiana) superclusters, each on the scale of gigawatts. These projects bring billions in construction spending, jobs, and tax revenue, but also raise concerns over who pays for energy upgrades and the millions of gallons of water per day required for cooling, straining local supplies. While Pennsylvania alone saw $90 billion in commitments at Trump’s summit, the Stargate Project dwarfs all others, a $500 billion, multi-year AI infrastructure buildout backed by Microsoft, NVIDIA, and SoftBank. Call it data center summer: United States tech and energy companies have made well over $100 billion in data center and electric grid announcements in recent weeks as players jostle for the top slot in a race to develop and power artificial intelligence. President Donald Trump headlined a summit at Carnegie Mellon University this summer where more than $90 billion in projects in and around Pennsylvania were announced. One day before the summit, Meta Platforms Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on one of his social media platforms that Meta was on track to bring the first 1-gigawatt-plus supercluster network online next year – a project called “Prometheus” in Ohio. Another Meta project – “Hyperion” in Louisiana – will scale up to 5 GW, Zuckerberg said, and it won’t be the company’s last “titan cluster.” “Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” Zuckerberg said in his posts. “We're also going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence," he said. "We have the capital from our business to do this.” Why it matters These massive facilities bring massive impacts for local communities and systems, including billions in equipment and construction that generate economic activity and tax revenue – often in rural areas. One study sees data center construction adding an entire percentage point to the national gross domestic product and called the sector “a strong tailwind to U.S. economic growth over the coming years." In the months since Meta’s $10 billion Louisiana center was announced, questions have mounted over who will pay for the billions more in new energy infrastructure needed to power the facility, and how long they’ll be on the hook for those upgrade costs. These facilities also use massive amounts of water for cooling. Some homeowner taps near a Meta center in Newton County, Georgia, have run dry, and local water rates are set to increase 33% over the next two years, according to The New York Times. “New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day,” the newspaper reported, citing water permit applications from data center projects. The bigger picture The Carnegie Mellon summit brought out executives from a wide range of companies, including Amazon, Google, ExxonMobil and Westinghouse. Some of the announcements made at the summit for in or around Pennsylvania: CoreWeave said it would spend $6 billion to open a new data center near Lancaster. First Energy, which serves some 6 million customers in Pennsylvania and nearby states, has announced $15 billion in “infrastructure enhancements, people, processes and facilities needed to deliver safe, reliable power.” Blackstone, the private equity firm, said it would invest $25 billion in new data centers and energy infrastructure, including natural gas power plants. Google said it would invest $25 billion in data centers and $3 billion to upgrade existing hydroelectric dams. All these announcements pale in comparison to the largest announcement this year: The Stargate Project is a 4-year, $500 billion plan to build AI infrastructure, starting with a $100 billion project near Abilene, Texas. SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX and Arm, Microsoft and NVIDIA are partners in the project.
