Meta Platforms chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the social network is planning to invest about $60 billion to $65 billion in AI infrastructure as the company pursues AI-led growth.
The capital expenditure is above Wall Street estimates of about $50 billion. The high capex disclosed today by Zuckerberg comes as the competition on the AI front continues to gather pace, with other tech giants announcing huge capex. This capital expenditure is expected to bolster the firm’s position in the AI sector as it competes against rivals like OpenAI and Google.
Meta wants to develop AI infrastructure
In the announcement, the Meta boss described 2025 as “a defining year for AI.” He said the initiative would also see Meta develop a 2-gigawatt data center that “would cover a significant part of Manhattan” to power its AI offerings.
Additionally, according to Zuckerberg, under its proposed plans for 2025, the company will bring on 1 gigawatt in computing and close the year with more than 1.3 billion graphics processing units.
“This is a massive effort,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Facebook.
“And over the coming years, it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership.”
Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg’s announcement comes a few days after President Donald Trump announced that OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank will form a venture known as Stargate and invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure across the US.
Meta has become a significant player in the AI race. The company has an AI chatbot, its Ray-Ban smart glasses, and an open-source approach which has set it apart from competitors in the industry. Meta allows its consumers and businesses to access and use its Llama AI models for free.
The company expects its AI assistant, which is already available across its services to serve over a billion people in 2025, an increase from about 600 million monthly active users it had in 2025.
According to a CNBC news article, shares of Meta rose to a new all-time high on Friday during intraday trading following Zuckerberg’s announcement.
Big techs make a big bet on AI
Big tech firms have been making huge investments in AI as the race to gain supremacy in the sector continues. Recently Chinese tech giant ByteDance revealed it would spend $20 billion capex mainly for AI in 2025.
Earlier this month Microsoft indicated it was planning to invest about $80 billion in 2025 to develop data centers. Amazon also announced this year it would spend more than $75 billion in 2024.
Meta has made several investments worth billions of dollars into the AI sector, and ramping up related research and development in the past few years. However, despite the vast investments, the sector is a fiercely competitive landscape and will take some time before investors can start seeing the benefits of their sweat.
During a call with investors in April, Zuckerberg indicated that he expected to see “a multiyear investment cycle” before the company’s AI products will scale into profitable services. He also pointed out that Meta has a strong track record in that department.
The company’s shares went down 16% at that time. Meta still generates a significant chunk of its revenue from digital advertising.
On Friday, Zuckerberg revealed that he expects the company’s Meta AI digital assistant to become the “leading assistant serving more than 1 billion people.”
“Zuckerberg is signaling to the market he does not want to be second in the AI race. The timing of the announcement was likely impacted by Stargate, which created urgency around sending a message.”
D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria.
According to CNBC, the company is also developing an AI engineer that will contribute “increasing amounts of code to our R&D efforts,” added Zuckerberg.
“We have the capital to continue investing in the years ahead,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. Meta is expected to release its fourth-quarter financial results on January 29.
