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LA · State profile
Louisiana Data Center Intel
Latest data center news, projects, power and policy across Louisiana — updated daily.
Recent Louisiana data center news
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Meta Announces PPA With RWE for 298-MW Texas Solar Power Project
Meta has announced a long-term corporate PPA with RWE for the 298-MW Rabbit’s Foot Solar project in Bowie County, Texas.
- Main announcement: Meta signed a long-term corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) with RWE for the 298-MW Rabbit’s Foot Solar installation in Bowie County, Texas; the project began onsite construction earlier in 2026 and is expected online by year-end 2027, intended to support Meta’s goal of matching its operations with 100% clean energy. This is the fourth PPA between Meta and RWE since 2024 and brings their combined agreements to 872 MW (previous projects: 274-MW Emily Solar, 100-MW Lafitte Solar, 200-MW Waterloo Solar).
- Background and implementation details: RWE estimates the project will create approximately 200 local construction jobs and generate long-term tax revenue for local services (schools, technical education programs, emergency services, road maintenance); RWE reports 13 GW of U.S. generation capacity in operation across 27 states and plans to add 9 GW of net new capacity by 2031.
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Roundup: Small business owners / Elevated car prices / Teacher bonuses
Richland Parish School District has distributed unusually large one-time end-of-year “13th checks” to some certified teachers, funded by a surge in local sales tax revenue tied to the Meta data center project.
- Main announcement: Some Richland Parish certified staff received nearly $51,000 as full-share, one-time end-of-year ‘13th checks’, with payouts varying by employment status and years of service; the payments were distributed by the school district as an annual one-time payout.
- Background/details: The checks are funded by a surge in local sales tax revenue tied to construction and economic activity from the Meta data center project in Richland Parish; the story was reported by KNOE and the bulletin also references related reporting by Inc. and CNBC on separate topics (small business creators and car prices).
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Behind-the-meter data center gas plants will raise US energy bills
Energy Innovation authors Jeffrey Rissman and Eric Gimon argue that data centers building on-site natural-gas power plants will raise energy prices for U.S. households and businesses and that policymakers should require data centers to supply their own clean on-site electricity.
- Main announcement/action: The authors call for a “bring your own clean energy” mandate so data centers do not rely on on-site natural-gas plants; they cite concrete capacity examples including a Richland Parish, LA facility using ~2.2 GW, a Cheyenne-area project with a 1.8 GW first phase designed to scale to 10 GW, and a BloombergNEF finding that ~100 GW of on-site gas capacity is planned for U.S. data centers. The piece urges that data centers instead deploy wind/solar + batteries and enhanced geothermal to provide firm, fuel-free power.
- Background and supporting details: The article documents that combined-cycle gas turbines are back-ordered 5–7 years, forcing use of inefficient turbines that increase pollution (citing an xAI Clean Air Act lawsuit), and describes policy tools to implement the proposal including “permit-by-rule”, pre-authorized renewable zones (Texas CREZ, Nevada Solar Energy Zones, Arizona Renewable Energy Incentive Districts), and mentions state laws that streamline permitting (Michigan HB 5120, Illinois HB 4412). It also gives examples of companies already using clean on-site supply (Google: 1.6 GW wind+solar with 300 MW battery; Amazon: 1.2 GW solar + equal battery storage).
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Roundup: Fortune 500 / Youth sports boom / Data center tax revenue
Bossier City is considering creating an infrastructure fund tied to a major Amazon-linked data center project.
- Main action: Bossier City proposes an infrastructure fund that would use tax revenue generated by an Amazon-linked data center development to pay for roads, water, sewer and other infrastructure improvements, with city leaders saying the plan could reduce the need to borrow money for future projects.
- Additional context:Entergy climbed 15 spots to No. 340 on the Fortune 1000; Lumen Technologies ranked No. 354 and Pool Corp. ranked No. 648. Separately, Bloomberg reports on a boom in private youth sports megacomplexes combining fields, hotels, restaurants and entertainment driven by travel-sports spending and tourism demand.
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New Data Center Developments: June 2026
Data Center Knowledge has published a monthly roundup of global data center developments.
- Highlights include: CloudBurst breaking ground on a 1.2 GW flagship campus in Central Texas; Nvidia partnering with IREN to deploy up to 5 GW of global AI infrastructure with Texas’ Sweetwater as a flagship site; Prime Data Centers breaking ground on SMF02 (150,000 sq.ft, 18 MW IT load) in Sacramento; Applied Digital planning Delta Forge 1 — $3.6 billion, 300-acre AI campus in Boyce, Louisiana; Hive Digital/Buzz HPC planning an ~320 MW AI facility in the Greater Toronto Area.
- Additional concrete items and timelines: SoftBank plans up to €75 billion to develop 5 GW in France (targeting 3.1 GW by 2031); Ardian & Verne’s €5 billion digital campus (500 MW, with 200+ MW by 2030); TotalEnergies’ €100 million Pangea 5 supercomputer investment; Arcem’s Joroinen site delivering 60 MW by 2027 and 100 MW by 2029; CDC Data Centres’ 555 MW contract to be delivered with operations commencing in FY28 and FY29. All items are factual summaries from the article.
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Targeted Pressure: How Chinese Manufacturing Competition Impacts US States
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has published a report finding Chinese industrial policy is reshaping global manufacturing and harming industries across every U.S. state.
- Main finding & method: The ITIF report (June 1, 2026) analyzes one “national power industry” per state using County Business Patterns employment data, HS/SITC export proxies, and global market-share series to conclude that state-backed Chinese subsidies, export pushes, and overcapacity are driving down prices and pressuring U.S. producers in sectors such as semiconductors, batteries, aircraft, and fabricated metals.
- Key facts, numbers, and timelines:China plans ~$150 billion in semiconductor investment through 2030 vs. $52 billion under the U.S. CHIPS funding; the report cites $63.3 billion Chinese semiconductor spending in H1 2025, TSMC’s $165 billion U.S. investment announcement, GE Appliances’ $490 million Appliance Park investment (2025), and state/national export shares and HS-code trade series used throughout the analyses.
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The Breaking Points: Water Is the New Constraint for AI Data Centers
Data Center Knowledge reports that water infrastructure constraints are emerging as a major limit on AI data center expansion.
- Main finding: Large AI data center proposals are requesting multi‑MGD water capacities (example: a Virginia campus requested up to 2 MGD initially, with potential future demand up to 8 MGD) and explicitly require continuous evaporative cooling for uninterrupted operations; these projected demands often exceed municipal water and wastewater planning assumptions.
- Background and specifics: Researchers’ paper “Small Bottle, Big Pipe” estimates U.S. data centers could require 697 million to 1.45 billion gallons/day of new water capacity through 2030; Texas’ draft 2027 State Water Plan estimates roughly $174 billion in water infrastructure projects may be needed over the next 50 years to meet growing AI demand and related upgrades (reservoirs, treatment, reclaimed-water networks).
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It’s official: Applied Digital is building a $3.6B data center in central Louisiana
Applied Digital has announced it will invest $3.6 billion to develop an artificial intelligence campus called Delta Forge 1 in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.
- Project details: Delta Forge 1 will be purpose-built for large-scale AI training and inference, initially comprising two facilities totaling 300 megawatts of critical IT load across 300 acres; site development began in January and initial operations are expected in mid-2027.
- Implementation and background: The campus will be powered by Cleco, use a closed-loop cooling system (eliminating constant water replenishment), Applied Digital qualified for Louisiana state and local sales and use tax exemption, and the developer expects 200 direct new jobs (salaries 150% above the state average) and 1,000+ peak construction jobs; company was reported to be in talks with a potential hyperscaler tenant (tenant not named).
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Big Fiber’s $250M Signals an AI Dark-Fiber Land Rush
Big Fiber has secured $250 million in financing from Stonepeak and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) to expand its dark fiber footprint and network capacity.
- Main action:$250 million financing from Stonepeak and CDPQ to support greenfield construction and overbuilds of exhausted legacy telecommunications corridors, targeting AI-driven demand in regions including the San Francisco Bay Area, Hillsboro, and Atlanta; funds will expand dark fiber footprint and network capacity for hyperscalers and large-scale data center operators.
- Context and details: Analysts and company executives cite extreme route diversity (tri-/quad-versity), rising inference workload demand for dense metro connectivity, and power-rich regions (West Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia) as drivers; the article notes optical supply chain tightening (CRU Group) and provides traffic multipliers (AI “scale-up” and “scale-out” bandwidth impacts) but does not specify implementation timelines.
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BEAD Non-Deployment Funds Could Fund Precision Ag. States Are Still Waiting to Find Out
Fiber operators and agricultural technology advocates at Fiber Connect argued that closing the precision agriculture gap requires a subsidized service model, a federal funding framework, and an education pipeline, with county agricultural extension offices as a distribution channel.
- Main announcement/action: Panelists including Josh Etheridge (EPC), Kevin Driscoll (Netceed), Chris Crowe (t3 Broadband), and Thomas Tyler (C207 Partners) urged that connectivity alone is insufficient and called for subsidized managed services, explicit federal guidance for using non-deployment BEAD funds, and partnerships with county agricultural extension offices to deliver training and equipment access.
- Background and details: The session (Orlando, May 18, 2026) highlighted that 86% of U.S. farms are family-owned and many earn under $350,000/year, that about $22 billion in BEAD non-deployment funds remain without federal guidance, and recommended connecting state broadband offices, state departments of agriculture, and ag extension offices to implement precision-ag programs.