Today, this is ground zero for what may prove a defining feature of the 21st century's landscape.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is constructing a gargantuan, $10 billion data center that tech executives, lawmakers, and business leaders say will bring much-needed prosperity to this rural area in northeast Louisiana. Set to be operational by 2030, the project has also disturbed local homeowners and drawn opposition from environmental and government activists who worry that it will suck up vast resources, especially water and energy, from surrounding communities. 

As tech companies plan to build more data centers around the country to fuel the boom in artificial intelligence, this massive project provides a window into the issues swirling around what many see as the next phase of the digital revolution. 

Meta's Hyperion project in Richland Parish will be the company's biggest in a constellation of 28 centers across 19 states, Europe, and Singapore. With tech giants investing heavily in AI, it is estimated that the current crop of more than 5,000 U.S. data centers, which first sprouted to handle cloud computing, represent just half of what will be needed as AI brings radical change to computing, education, medicine, and other fields by mid-century.

Already, millions of Americans have signed up for various AI programs, such as ChatGPT (Microsoft) or Grok (Elon Musk) or Meta AI, and last month, the Trump administration released an "American AI Action Plan." Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has dubbed 2025 "the defining year of AI," and, as if to prove it, his company is spending $65 billion this year building out its platform.

Although AI is not producing the profits Wall Street craves, Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and other big tech stocks continue to soar. Just as cloud computing services have become major profit generators for Amazon, Apple, Meta, and others, AI is expected to bring billions into individual and corporate accounts.

AI's Energy Appetite

Whether AI becomes the amoral killer of the human race, as Hollywood and many futurists have envisioned, or improves the lives of billions of people, as its champions insist, there is no disputing that data centers are insatiable in their power demands. The high-tech warehouses require energy to operate millions of GPU servers stacked in rows that stretch out like banks of speakers at a Rolling Stones concert, as well as their futuristic air conditioning and water-cooling systems. By 2028, the centers, which are also known as "hyperscalers," are expected to consume 12% of all U.S. energy, or more than California, Florida, and New Jersey combined.