Meta to invest 'aggressively' in AI, ups spending forecast

Facebook parent Meta on Wednesday said it will sharply ramp up investment in artificial intelligence (AI), with capital expenditures reaching between $70 billion and $72 billion this year and "notably larger" outlays planned for 2026.

The company had previously forecast capital expenditures of $66 billion to $72 billion.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts the company aims to lead the industry in computing power, saying Meta would "aggressively" expand its data centre capacity to meet anticipated soaring AI demand. If AI workloads take longer to ramp, Meta would put the extra compute to work in other areas, he said.

A strong advertising business continues to fund Meta's costly AI push. Revenue jumped 26% from a year earlier to about $51.2 billion, with 3.54 billion people using at least one of its apps daily, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg has made no secret of his ambition to overtake ChatGPT developer OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk's xAI in the race for AI dominance.

Profit, however, plunged after a one-off tax charge of around $15.9 billion linked to changes under US President Donald Trump's budget law earlier this year. The quarterly profit dropped 83% year-on-year to $2.7 billion. Meta said the accounting change would reduce its long-term tax burden despite the short-term hit.