Meta expects to spend up to $72 billion on AI

Most will go to data centres, researchers

- ELI TAN

In its quest to win Silicon Valley's artificial intelligence race, Meta has shelled out tens of billions of dollars on data centres and Al researchers.

On Wednesday, Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, indicated that the spending would not stop.

The company raised its capital expenditure forecast for this year to $70 billion to $72 billion, from a previous estimate of $66 billion to $72 billion. Most of that will be spent on data centres, which are the computing facilities that power artificial intelligence development, and compensation for Al researchers. Meta added that capital expenditures would “be notably larger in 2026 than 2025.”

That puts Meta’s capital expenditures closer to larger tech giants like Microsoft, which had projected spending of $88 billion for its 2025 fiscal year. For Meta, the forecast is a large jump from spending in prior years: $28 billion in 2023 and $39 billion last year. Next year, the company’s expenditures could be as much as $100 billion, according to analyst estimates.