KEY TAKEAWAYS: Amazon announces $12B data center campuses in Caddo and Bossier parishes. Meta and Hut 8 add $20B in AI projects across Richland and West Feliciana. Large facilities could use millions of gallons of water daily. Projects expected to significantly increase energy demand on Louisi ana’s power grid.   Louisiana Economic Development (LED) announced Feb. 23 that Amazon selected the state for $12 billion data center campuses in Caddo and Bossier Parish. LED announced Dec. 17, 2025, that West Feliciana Parish will be the site of a $10 billion Hut 8 Artificial Intelligence (AI) data center. In Dec. 2024, Meta announced the building of a $10 billion, four-million-square-foot AI data center campus in Richland Parish. How will this impact the state? Here’s what we know. How will AI data centers affect Louisiana water supply and quality? Mid-sized data centers consume as much water as a small town, with larger ones requiring up to five million gallons of water every day, which equates to a city of 50,000 people, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Meta says its data center in Richland Parish will use quantities of water similar to that of agricultural consumption in the area, while pledging to offset water consumption through various waterway restoration projects, according to 10/12 Industry Report. Amazon’s data center in Caddo and Bossier Parish will primarily use water from Caddo Lake. This region gets majority of its drinking water from Cross Lake and the Red River, according to USGS Publications Waterhouse. Hut 8’s data center in West Feliciana will be cooled using a closed-loop recirculating system in order to minimize water consumption, initially requiring the equivalent of three to four Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to Data Center Map, which equate to around 2.3 million gallons of water. How much land is being used for AI data centers in Louisiana? The AI data center campus requires significant amounts of land, with some of the largest centers covering over hundreds of acres, constructed with steel, concrete and paved surfaces. As a result, land used for data center will no longer be viable for farmland, nature or housing, and will require additional transmission line corridors and other infrastructure, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Meta’s data center in Richland Parish will be built upon land previously used for farming purposes, totaling 2,500 acres, says 10/12 Industry Report. Hut 8’s River Bend data campus in West Feliciana Parish will build two centers, totaling approximately 450,000 square feet. Amazon plans to build three complexes across Caddo and Bossier Parish, with one at the Blanchard Latex Road and State Line Road intersection, one five miles north of Benton on the west side of Highway 3 and one Resilient Tech Park on Greenwood Road, according to Technical.ly. How will AI data centers affect energy and the power grid in Louisiana? Large amounts of electricity are used to power and cool AI server stacks, with conventional data centers drawing as much electricity as 10,000 to 25,000 households and larger “hyperscale” centers using as much power as 100,000 homes or more, says the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Meta’s data center in Richland Parish is expected to draw more than twice the power of the entire city of New Orleans. While Meta intends to pay Entergy Louisiana for the construction of three new natural gas turbines, transmission line costs will be passed along to utility customers in the area, New Orleans City Business reported. SWPECO, a regional utility company, will provide power for Amazon’s data campuses in Caddo and Bossier Parish using new and existing grid infrastructure, with Amazon paying for infrastructure upgrades, New Orleans City Business Reported. Hut 8 announced it is working with Entergy Louisiana to secure 330 mega watts (MW) to power the data center in West Feliciana Parish, with the potential to increase utility capacity by 1,000 MW. Presley Bo Tyler is a reporter for the Louisiana Deep South Connect Team for USA Today. Find her on X @PresleyTyler02 and email at [email protected] This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: 3 AI data centers planned for Louisiana. What is impact on small towns? Reporting by Presley Bo Tyler, Shreveport Times / Shreveport Times USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect ...read more read less