Construction has commenced on the massive $12.5 billion data center that bitcoin miner Hut 8 is developing in West Feliciana Parish, according to Parish President Kenny Havard.
Havard says the project is on schedule and may even be progressing slightly ahead of the original timeline submitted to parish officials late last year. Roadwork tying the facility’s 592-acre site to La. 964 has begun.
“They’re down there working. … I’ve been told that they’re on schedule or maybe even a little ahead,” Havard says.
It’s important to note that the state of Louisiana has yet to formally announce the project, as it normally would for a project of this scope. Havard attributes the delay to a desire to finalize all the details before going public. Efforts to confirm the status of the project with Louisiana Economic Development at press time were unsuccessful.
“I know they’ve been talking with LED. … I think they just want to make sure all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed before there’s a formal announcement,” Havard says.
News of the project surfaced in December 2024. At the time, plans called for Hut 8 to invest $2.5 billion to construct the data center and for the data center’s future tenants to invest an additional $10 billion in computers and equipment, bringing the total investment to about $12.5 billion. Plans called for two 450,000-square-foot structures to be built in the first phase of construction, with additional structures to be built in a second and final construction phase.
Havard says those plans remain unchanged to the best of his knowledge, and that the data center should be at least partially operational by the middle of 2026.
“I haven’t been told anything different from what was originally talked about,” he says. “As far as I know, Hut’s plans haven’t changed.”
The data center, which Hut 8 referred to in its most recent earnings report as its “River Bend campus,” is expected to initially require 300 megawatts of power. Havard says that electricity will be drawn from the grid. New substations and transmission lines will be required, but no new power plant construction is anticipated.
“Hut and Entergy have had numerous discussions over the past few months—possibly years,” Havard says, though he notes that he hasn’t been directly involved in those conversations.
The data center’s water consumption will be minimal compared to industry standards because the facility will use a “recirculating system,” Havard says. It’ll require the equivalent of just three to four Olympic-size swimming pools worth of water for its initial charge, and beyond that, the only water consumed on a regular basis will be for flushing toilets and other basic functions.
“It’s not going to be consuming a bunch of water every day. … It’s a state-of-the-art design,” Havard says.
The data center is expected to create between 1,500 and 2,000 construction jobs and about 200 permanent jobs with an average salary of roughly $120,000, according to Havard.
News of the project came on the heels of the announcement that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is building its own data center in Richland Parish.
It remains unclear who will ultimately lease space at Hut 8’s data center. The company’s stock rallied late last year amid rumors that the facility is part of Meta’s plans for further data center expansion in Louisiana, but Havard says he hasn’t heard anything to confirm those rumors and doesn’t know who the tenants will be.
