The first multi-gigawatt data centre, called Prometheus, is expected to come online in 2026, Zuckerberg said.

He said one of the sites would cover an area nearly the size of Manhattan (59.1 sq km/22.8 sq miles).

Meta has invested heavily in efforts to develop what it called “superintelligence”—technology “that it said could outthink the smartest humans.

The company, which has made most of its money from online advertising, generated more than $160bn in revenue in 2024.

In a post on his social media platform, Threads, Zuckerberg said Meta was building several multi-gigawatt clusters, and that one cluster, called Hyperion, could scale up to five gigawatts over several years.

“We’re building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” he added.

Prometheus will be built in New Albany, Ohio, while Hyperion will be built in Louisiana and is expected to be fully online by 2030, Zuckerberg said.

He said Meta would “invest hundreds of billions of dollars… to build superintelligence” and that the centres had been given “names befitting their scale and impact”.

Karl Freund, principal analyst at Cambrian AI Research, told the BBC, “clearly, Zuckerberg intends to spend his way to the top of the AI heap”.

“The talent he is hiring will have access to some of the best AI Hardware in the world,” Freund added.

Meta shares were trading 1% higher following the announcement, Reuters news agency reported. The stock has risen more than 20% so far this year.

There are at least 10,000 data centres around the world hosting the cloud, remote servers that store digital information, with most of them located in the US, followed by the UK and Germany.

AI-driven data centres are extremely energy and water intensive. One study estimates that these centres could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027. A single AI query—for example, a request to ChatGPT—can use about as much water as a small bottle you’d buy from the corner shop.

Source: BBC

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Built with Llama 3, it is a significant step in making Meta AI smarter, faster, and more fun than ever before.

The rollout of this AI assistant in English will enhance connections and provide millions of Africans with tools to be more creative, expressive and productive.

It is now available on phones and in pockets for free in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

Meta AI can be used on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger to get things done, learn, create and connect with the things that matter.

You can use Meta AI in feeds, chats, searches and more across our apps to get things done and access real-time information without leaving the app you’re using.

Mark Zuckerberg said during his post on Thursday, “Our goal is to build the world’s leading AI. We believe Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use.

“To make Meta AI even smarter, we’ve also integrated real-time knowledge from Google and Bing, right into the answers. We’re also making it much easier to use across our apps.”

Meta said with its expansion of Meta AI in English to new countries, “we are excited to share our next-generation assistant with even more people and make it work for you by providing real-time information through our seamless search integration in the apps you know and love.

“The new features of Meta AI include the ability to animate images, iterate on them in a new style, or even turn them into a GIF to share with friends, sparking your creativity in new ways.”

Meta first announced this form of connecting with others at the 2023 Meta Connect. Now, more people around the world can interact with it in more ways than ever before.