Meta has entered into a $27 billion financial agreement with Blue Owl Capital to develop its AI-focused Hyperion data center. This marks Meta’s largest data center project to date and represents the company’s biggest private capital deal so far. Under the agreement, Meta will retain approximately a 20% stake in the project located in Richland Parish, Louisiana, while the majority will be held by funds managed by Blue Owl Capital, which specializes in alternative asset management. Blue Owl contributed roughly $7 billion in cash to the joint venture, and Meta received a $3 billion upfront payment.
The Hyperion data center is designed to provide over 2 gigawatts of computing power to support the training of large language models, such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Blue Owl Capital’s co-chairs described the project as “an ambitious initiative reflecting the scale and speed required to advance the next generation of AI infrastructure.”
According to Morgan Stanley, major tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and CoreWeave are expected to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year. OpenAI, at the center of the AI boom, has signed multiple agreements to secure roughly 26 gigawatts of computing capacity, potentially worth over $1 trillion.
Meta’s CFO Susan Li called the deal “a bold move.” Meta has signed four-year initial lease agreements for the facility, which is expected to create more than 500 jobs once operational. Alvin Nguyen, a lead analyst at Forrester, noted that the financing provides several key advantages for Meta, helping reduce risks tied to ownership stakes while minimizing the company’s debt burden even in the event of a potential AI “bubble” correction.
