Meta’s 2GW Data Centre: How the Company Plans to Grow AI

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company plans to expand its data centre footprint (Image: Meta)
Mark Zuckerberg announced plans on Facebook that Meta will be prioritising its AI developments in 2025 by building 2GW+ data centre the size of Manhattan

2025 is the year of Meta AI according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

In such an era of AI-enabled digital transformation, Mark Zuckerberg announced via Facebook that the company is planning to build a 2GW data centre with more than 1.3 million Nvidia AI GPUs.

As part of this, he states that Meta will also be investing US$65bn in AI in 2025, hoping to solidify its position as a global technology leader and expand upon its offerings. 

“This will be a defining year for AI,” he states via his Facebook post. “In 2025, I expect Meta AI will be the leading assistant serving more than one billion people, Llama 4 will become the leading state of the art model and we'll build an AI engineer that will start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D efforts. 

“To power this, Meta is building a 2GW+ data centre that is so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan.”

Continuing the race for AI dominance

Such an announcement from Zuckerberg comes as global AI competition heats up, with leading technology businesses eager to solidify its competitive position in the industry.

Meta's conceptualised 2GW+ data centre (Image: Mark Zuckerberg via Facebook)

His announcement comes just days after the Stargate announcement, where a consortium of technology giants has announced a US$500bn investment to develop AI infrastructure across the US.

Led by OpenAI and SoftBank, the Stargate project aims to create shared computing facilities to meet the growing demands of AI systems. Initially, the deployment will focus on facilities in Texas, with Oracle and Microsoft participating as equity partners.

More broadly, companies that are developing AI are facing increased levels of pressure on computing resources. 

Training of large language models (LLMs) now requires more intense computing power that exceeds the capacity of individual data centres. As a result, businesses are being forced to seek new approaches to infrastructure development. 

The global data centre market is repositioning itself as a powerhouse to support such unprecedented growth. According to Research and Markets, the sector is expected to reach US$343.6bn by 2030, particularly as giants like Meta build new data centres and expand existing ones.

Key facts
  • 2GW+ planned data center capacity
  • 1.3 million Nvidia AI GPUs
  • US$65bn AI investment

From Meta’s perspective, the proposed new data centre could see the company boost its core product offerings and bolster its US technology innovation.

Zuckerberg explains: “We'll bring online ~1GW of compute in 2025 and we'll end the year with more than 1.3 million GPUs. We're planning to invest US$60-65bn in capex this year while also growing our AI teams significantly and we have the capital to continue investing in the years ahead. 

“This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership. Let's go build!”

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta

“Let’s go build!”

Meta has long been eager to invest heavily in data centres. The company has already expanded its data centre footprint to dozens of locations worldwide, including Odense in Denmark and Huntsville, Alabama.

The company actually incurred a US$4.3bn restructuring charge in 2023 after it decided to redesign many of its future data centre projects to prepare for the rapid growth of AI.

According to Zuckerberg, the company will continue to spend heavily on the infrastructure required to support the future of AI and computing.

The company has also been working out collaboration with the new US government, in the wake of US President Donald Trump taking office.

Mark Zuckerberg is eager to work closely with the new administration, saying that he believes the election was a “cultural tipping point”.

President Trump has pledged to support US technology firms

He added: “We're going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more," he said, adding that various countries have cracked down on certain speech online.

“The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government.”


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