Meta sticks Louisianans with the AI electric bill

It took the U.S. six days to get water to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in the Superdome in 2005. Twenty years later America’s found a whole new way to screw the Cajuns over, with a lot of help from Meta. Meta recently announced that it is building a 4 million-square-foot AI data center in the state of Louisiana—its biggest ever, with energy needs to match. AI processing is incredibly power-hungry, and Meta’s AI factory needs 2 GW of electricity, enough to power about one and a half million households. This means building a new natural gas power station nearby at a cost of $5 billion. Woof! That’s a big bill for Meta, isn’t it? Actually, no. Because Meta isn’t paying anything for its data center power station. Entergy, the local utility, is building that. Bit pricey for Entergy, right?  Well, no, because Entergy isn’t paying either. Instead, they’re planning to hand the good people of Louisiana the enormous bill by tagging on the cost of the new fossil fuel power station to their customers’ utility bills. 

[Steve Saunders is a British-born communications analyst, investor and digital media entrepreneur.]