Meta Expands Hyperion AI Data Center in Louisiana
Meta quietly expanded its Hyperion AI data center project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, purchasing roughly 1,400 acres adjacent to the existing 2,250-acre site, according to Fortune. The combined land parcels will create a campus more than twice the size of Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans.
The land purchase paves the way for a phase 2 expansion of the Hyperion project, which has been widely discussed as one of the nation's largest AI data centers, according to multiple people affiliated with companies working on or around the Meta site. Fortune observed active work underway on the newly acquired land.
In other news, Pinterest fired two employees who created a tool for tracking the company's layoffs, highlighting a shift in power from employees to employers in corporate America, Fortune reported. Pinterest announced it would lay off less than 15% of its workforce and shed office space as part of a restructuring running through the end of September that will reallocate resources to AI-focused roles and AI products, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. After the announcement, in a meeting led by the company's chief technology officer, Matt Madrigal, Pinterest's chief security officer, Andy Steingruebl, told engineers company leaders wouldn't be distributing a list of laid-off employees to protect the individuals' privacy.
Meanwhile, quantum computing company IonQ faced questions about its revenues and insider stock sales following a report by short-seller Wolfpack Research, Fortune noted. Wolfpack, which is short IonQ's stock, alleged that the company misled investors about the extent to which there is organic demand for its quantum computing technology. The report said IonQ did not disclose that its reported revenues had been dependent on backdoor earmarks inserted into the Pentagon budget by friendly lawmakers and that those earmarks were canceled after the Republicans took control of Congress in 2025.
In other business news, NYU Stern marketing professor and tech analyst Scott Galloway suggested that OpenAI's expected public listing is far from a sure thing, citing eroding competitive advantages and a toxic shift in brand perception, Fortune reported. "I think OpenAI could get pulled," Galloway stated, assigning a nonzero probability to the company withdrawing its IPO.
Finally, a House Financial Services Committee hearing became chaotic as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clashed with ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) over the economic impact of President Trump's tariff policies, according to Fortune. The confrontation began with Waters pressing Bessent on what she characterized as a convenient evolution in his economic philosophy regarding tariffs. Waters asked the secretary whether he had written a letter to hedge fund investors warning that "tariffs are inflationary."
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