Meta doubles down on infrastructure

Meta is locking in the chips and the electricity for a much larger artificial intelligence buildout. Broadcom said April 14 that its custom-silicon deal with Meta now runs through 2029. (broadcom.com) The chip side starts big: Broadcom said Meta’s initial commitment tops 1 gigawatt of Meta Training and Inference Accelerator capacity, using what the companies called the industry’s first 2-nanometre artificial intelligence compute accelerator. Meta said the partnership covers multiple generations of MTIA chips for its apps and services. (broadcom.com) (about.fb.com) A gigawatt is a power-plant scale measure, and Meta is using it here to describe the size of the computing fleet it plans to deploy. Broadcom said the first phase is meant to lead into a sustained multi-gigawatt rollout. (cnbc.com) (broadcom.com) Meta is also pushing ahead on the grid build needed to run those systems in Louisiana. On April 15, the Louisiana Public Service Commission voted 4-1 to fast-track Entergy Louisiana’s request for a shortened review of a power plan tied to Meta’s Richland Parish data center. (wwno.org) (yahoo.com) Entergy’s filing is the largest proposed investment in the utility’s history, at about $21.37 billion, according to WWNO. Local television station WWL-TV reported the plan includes 10 natural-gas-fired plants, renewable energy and other grid infrastructure for the Meta site. (wwno.org) (wwltv.com) The two moves fit together. Meta has been shifting from renting more standard artificial intelligence chips to designing more of its own hardware and securing dedicated power for the data centers that will run it. (about.fb.com) (cnbc.com) Custom chips matter because they let a company tune the hardware to its own workloads, the way a delivery fleet might swap a general-purpose truck for a vehicle built for one route. Meta said it uses a “portfolio approach” to match different accelerators to different artificial intelligence jobs, balancing performance, power use and cost. (about.fb.com) The Louisiana power plan is drawing opposition as well as support. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the fast-track vote could speed approval of seven additional gas plants on top of three approved in August 2025, while Entergy told WWL-TV the project would support economic growth and lower costs by adding a major new customer to the grid. (ucs.org) (wwltv.com) Louisiana regulators already approved an earlier Entergy agreement for the Meta project in August 2025, clearing work on major grid upgrades tied to the Richland Parish campus. The new procedural vote does not approve the full $21 billion plan, but it moves that next round faster. (entergy.com) (wwno.org) What Meta announced this week is not just a chip contract. It is a longer timetable, a named manufacturing partner, a gigawatt-scale starting point and a parallel push to secure enough generation to keep those systems running. (broadcom.com) (about.fb.com) (yahoo.com)