Louisiana Data Center Intel

Recent Louisiana data center news

• Jul 27, 2026

  As Louisiana pursues megaprojects, NDAs become standard operating procedure

  Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry personally signed a mutual nondisclosure agreement with Meta subsidiary Laidley LLC during negotiations over Meta’s Hyperion data center project in Richland Parish.

  • The NDA reportedly covers proposed deal terms, pricing, financial information, and even the existence of the agreement itself; it also restricts public discussion without written approval and asks the state to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to limit public-records disclosures.
  • The article is reporting on records obtained by Gulf States Newsroom and commentary from open-government advocates, while noting that at least 121 employees in Landry’s office have signed similar confidentiality agreements since he took office.
• Jul 27, 2026 · Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

  Mobilizing for Techno-Economic War, Part 6: From Free Trade Agreements to Strategic Techno-Economic Agreements

  ITIF has published a policy report proposing Strategic Techno-Economic Agreements (STEAs) as a new framework for U.S.-led trade deals aimed at strengthening allied industries and constraining China.

  • The report argues that the free trade era is over and calls for binding, reciprocal agreements with allies that include zero-for-zero tariffs, digital trade rules, defense production cooperation, investment screening, export-control alignment, and counter-IP theft measures.
  • It also cites several recent or existing policy precedents and announcements, including USTR’s March 2026 Section 301 investigations, the U.S.-U.K. critical minerals MOU, and the Pax Silica initiative; the report itself is an original ITIF publication, not a news report of a single transaction.
• Jul 24, 2026

  Trump pledge on data center power supplies draws skepticism

  President Donald Trump announced a non-binding pledge by U.S. power producers and data centers to fund or build energy infrastructure for AI-related power demand while claiming consumers would be shielded from higher electricity costs.

  • Trump said at an Environmental Protection Agency event that America’s largest tech companies have committed to fund or build the energy infrastructure needed for the grid, and that they would get the right to build their own power plants.
  • The article frames the pledge as non-binding and notes criticism from Climate Power and other opponents; it also cites PJM Interconnection capacity-market charges of $6.3 billion for data centers and EIA forecasts of rising residential electricity prices in 2026 and 2027.
• Jul 23, 2026

  White House Expands Data Center Ratepayer Pledge as Congress Moves to Codify Protections

  The White House expanded its voluntary Ratepayer Protection Pledge to 187 utilities, electric cooperatives, and data-center developers, while Congress advanced the bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act from committee 52-0.

  • The White House said the pledge now covers 187 organizations plus 23 governors, and the coalition “protects” 263 million Americans; signatories commit to fund generation and grid upgrades for their data-center loads without shifting costs to other ratepayers.
  • The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced H.R. 9340 on July 21; the bill would require state regulators and nonregulated utilities to consider a large-load standard for sites with at least 100 MW peak demand and recover the full incremental cost of grid upgrades. New York’s Executive Order 62 separately put permits for 50 MW+ data centers on hold pending an environmental review.
• Jul 23, 2026

  As data centers proliferate, Louisiana is rethinking how to tax them

  Louisiana is considering its first statewide property valuation standards for data centers.

  • The proposal, commissioned by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, would set uniform valuation guidelines for servers, storage systems, networking equipment, and the electrical and cooling infrastructure supporting them.
  • It assigns a three-year economic life to computing equipment and an eight-year economic life to electrical and cooling infrastructure; it is in the early stages of the Louisiana Tax Commission’s rulemaking process and would not affect existing payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements, including Meta’s Richland Parish AI data center.
  • Louisiana Economic Development says ongoing equipment upgrades could replenish the property tax base over time, while author Bob Adair cautions that future replacement investments cannot be assumed.
• Jul 21, 2026

  Roundup: Nexus Technology Cup / Delfin LNG facility / Grid under pressure

  Delfin has advanced its second floating LNG vessel project off Louisiana, while the article also cites a Bloomberg forecast on U.S. data center electricity demand.

  • Delfin issued a limited notice-to-proceed to Siemens Energy for key equipment on a second floating LNG vessel off Louisiana as part of the more than $24 billion Delfin LNG project.
  • The project will be developed in phases; this contract advances phase two, and Delfin is targeting a final investment decision on the second phase before year-end. The article also says U.S. data centers could use about 20% of U.S. electricity by 2035 and face a 19-gigawatt power shortfall.
• Jul 20, 2026

  Roundup: Pennington / Judge blocks media merger / BlackRock backs data center

  BlackRock is seeking to sell more than $12 billion in bonds to finance Meta’s AI-focused data center campus in El Paso, Texas.

  • Debt financing: BlackRock plans to issue more than $12 billion in bonds through a holding company that owns 80% of the project, while Meta owns 20%.
  • The El Paso data center is expected to open in 2028; the article says Meta has used a similar financing model for its Hyperion data center project in Louisiana.

  The piece also reports that LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center received a five-year grant renewal, and that a federal judge temporarily blocked Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

  • Grant renewal: LSU’s center received a five-year, $5.66 million renewal of its Nutrition Obesity Research Center grant from the NIH institute NIDDK, extending support through 2031.
  • Merger pause: A federal judge blocked Paramount’s proposed $81 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery for at least 14 days; a hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Aug. 3.
• Jul 20, 2026

  Cleco’s $3.6B data center deal could reshape central Louisiana’s energy landscape

  Cleco has announced plans to build a new 756-megawatt natural gas power plant as part of an agreement to supply electricity to Applied Digital’s planned $3.6 billion data center in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.

  • Applied Digital’s facility could require up to 430 MW, which Cleco says would be its largest single load ever served; Applied Digital would pay for the interconnection infrastructure, including new substations, substation upgrades, and transmission improvements.
  • The agreement also includes a separate 10-year capacity arrangement that lets Cleco secure additional power, including 370 MW from the Tenaska Frontier Generating Station in Texas; Cleco estimates Applied Digital will contribute nearly $3 billion over 15 years in non-fuel charges and generate more than $700 million in net benefits to existing customers.
• Jul 17, 2026

  The AI Infrastructure Split Screen: Capital Rush Meets Community Resistance

  Data Center Frontier has published an analysis of the mid-July AI infrastructure market, combining public-market activity, project announcements, financing moves, and local permitting disputes.

  • Capital markets: Csquare priced 50 million shares at $21 to raise about $1.05 billion and implied an equity value of roughly $3.2 billion; Switch was linked to a potential $10 billion IPO and near $80 billion valuation including debt; Databricks signed a term sheet for a financing at a $188 billion valuation with the Wall Street Journal reporting about $3 billion in new investment.
  • Project and policy developments: Meta said its Hyperion expansion in Louisiana could reach 5 GW and more than $50 billion; Google was tied to a 2.7 GW Project Tembo in Wyoming; New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered an up-to-one-year pause on discretionary environmental permitting for certain hyperscale data centers; Palm Beach County commissioners rejected Project Tango by 5–1 after a roughly 12-hour hearing.
  • The article is a broad market commentary and synthesis, not a single original company announcement. It references multiple first-reported deals and filings, while also citing local opposition, power constraints, and community consent as central themes.
• Jul 17, 2026

  Right-Sizing Data Centers: How to Match Footprint to Real-World Demand

  The article explains a framework for right-sizing data centers and argues that bigger is not always better.

  • It compares the size spectrum from edge and micro data centers to hyperscale campuses, emphasizing that deployments should be sized around actual business needs.
  • It discusses factors for planning footprint, including IT load, server classes, rack density, cooling, materials, and phased expansion; examples cited include AWS’s 1,200-acre Project Rainer in New Carlisle, Indiana, and CoreSite’s LA1 in Los Angeles.