Glossary
Louisiana AI & data center glossary
The terms, agencies, and acronyms you need to read every Louisiana AI filing — incentives, regulators, utilities, and infrastructure.
Hyperscale AI data center
A purpose-built data center campus exceeding ~100 MW IT load, optimized for high-density AI training and inference workloads.
Act 730 (Louisiana)
Louisiana law passed in the 2024 Regular Session that provides a 20-year (renewable to 30) state and local sales/use tax exemption for approved data centers.
PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes)
A negotiated parish-level agreement that substitutes a set payment schedule for full ad-valorem property taxes during a project's early years.
Louisiana Economic Development (LED)
The Louisiana state agency that certifies data center projects, administers Act 730, and operates the Quality Jobs payroll-rebate program.
Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC)
The five-member elected commission that regulates Louisiana utilities and approves the tariff filings that fund data-center power buildouts.
Quality Jobs Program
Louisiana payroll-rebate program providing up to 6% rebate on payroll for new direct jobs above set wage thresholds.
Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP)
Louisiana program providing ad-valorem property-tax exemption on qualifying manufacturing capex, subject to local approval.
Entergy Louisiana
The Entergy Corporation subsidiary that serves much of north and southeast Louisiana, and the utility of record for Meta Hyperion and Hut 8 River Bend.
AEP SWEPCO (Southwestern Electric Power Company)
The AEP subsidiary that serves northwest Louisiana and is the utility of record for Amazon's $12B Caddo + Bossier data center campuses.
Cleco Power
Investor-owned utility serving central Louisiana including Rapides Parish and parts of Acadiana.
Megawatt (MW) and Gigawatt (GW)
Units of power — 1 GW = 1,000 MW. Louisiana AI projects are now sized in MW (single campus) and GW (multi-site portfolios).
GPU cluster
A networked group of graphics processing units (typically NVIDIA H100/H200/B200/B300 class) used for large-scale AI training and inference.
Hyperscaler
Term of art for the top-tier cloud and AI operators (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle) that operate hyperscale data centers.