Meta says 2026 spending on AI and data centres will blow past analysts’ estimates
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An ad from Meta touting the positive economic effects of its new data centre in Altoona, Iowa, US.
PHOTO: ANDRI TAMBUNAN/NYTIMES
San Francisco – Meta Platforms said it will spend far more than analysts expected on data centres and artificial intelligence (AI), increasing pressure on the business to show a return on that investment.
The owner of Facebook projected full-year capital expenditures of US$115 billion (S$145 billion) to US$135 billion, exceeding the US$110.6 billion average analyst estimate, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has driven an aggressive campaign to amass the infrastructure, computing power and talent that he deems necessary to win the competitive AI race.
Mr Zuckerberg has said his strategy centres on “front-loading” computing capacity in preparation for reaching the company’s goal of “superintelligence” – a theoretical milestone at which AI can meet or outperform humans in many tasks.
Meta is building several gigawatt-scale data centres across the US, including one in rural Louisiana, a project President Donald Trump said would cost US$50 billion. It would be large enough to cover a significant part of Manhattan.
In 2025, Meta signed contracts with Alphabet, CoreWeave and Nebius for additional compute power, signalling a pressing need for capacity expansion due to internal constraints.
The spending spree has been prompted by rivalry among Big Tech firms in Silicon Valley’s AI race, where Meta has stumbled after its Llama 4 model met a poor reception. Now, the company is betting on its new AI models, which were launched internally in January.
Meta said on Jan 28 that first-quarter sales will be between US$53.5 billion and US$56.5 billion, beating the US$51.3 billion average analyst estimate.
Meta’s ad platform has remained its growth engine, allowing advertisers to automate and personalise their campaigns and help the company support its investments to achieve superintelligence.
The company is laying off about 10 per cent of its staff at its Reality Labs group, which has around15,000 employees, as it redirects resources from some of its metaverse products to wearables.
The unit – which has accumulated more than US$70 billion in losses since 2021 – includes Meta’s ambitious metaverse bet that prompted the company to change its name from Facebook. BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
