July 13 (Reuters) - Meta META.O said on Monday its data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana will expand to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, in a bid to support the social media company's AI ambitions.

Since breaking ground in December 2024, local Louisiana businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts from Meta, the company said.

Here are some details:

• Meta said that the data center expansion is an investment of more than $50 billion in the Richland Parish region.

• Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump had said the company's data center project would cost $50 billion.

• With this expansion, the company said it plans to invest over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems.

• Meta, like its Big Tech peers, has been pouring billions of dollars into AI data centers and computing power, as demand continues to outstrip supply.

• The company has pledged to invest $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years, as it builds out massive data centers to power CEO Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive bets on AI agent technologies.