Feb 26, 2025 08:30 AM IST
Meta is reportedly considering building the campus in states such as Louisiana, Wyoming or Texas.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is reportedly in talks to build a new data centre for its artificial intelligence (AI) projects, with potential costs likely to exceed $200 billion.
Meta executives have informed data centre developers that the Facebook and Instagram parent company is considering building the campus in states such as Louisiana, Wyoming or Texas, with senior leaders having visited potential sites this month, The Information reported.
Last month, Meta CEO Zuckerberg, the world’s third-richest person behind rival and Tesla, SpaceX leader Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, announced the company plans to spend as much as $65 billion this year to expand its AI infrastructure.
On the other hand, Microsoft declared it will invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 to develop data centres, and Amazon stated its 2025 spending would be $100 million, higher than the $75 billion estimated in 2024.
Meta accused of ‘preferring’ foreign workers
Meanwhile, in a separate development, a federal judge on Tuesday said Meta must face a lawsuit, which accuses the Menlo Park, California-based giant of giving “preference” to foreign workers as it can “pay them less than American workers.”
Three US citizens who alleged Meta “refused” to hire them despite them being eligible, may pursue a proposed class action, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said.
The applicants are information technology worker Purushothaman Rajaram and software engineer Ekta Bhatia, both naturalized American citizens, and data scientist Qun Wang.
They claimed to have applied for several Meta jobs between 2020 and 2024, but rejected because of the firm’s “systematic preference” for visa holders.
Meta, in a statement, called the allegations “baseless,” and stated it would continue to “vigorously defend itself.”
The company also denied it “intended to discriminate” or would have hired the plaintiffs if they were not US citizens.
However, the judge rejected the argument statistics that 15% of Meta’s American workforce holds H-1B visas, which typically go to foreign professionals, compared with 0.5% of the overall workforce.
She also cited Meta’s October 2021 agreement to pay up to $14.25 million, including a civil fine, to settle federal government claims it routinely refused to consider American workers for jobs it reserved for temporary visa holders.
(With Reuters inputs)
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