Mark Zuckerberg spent all of 2024 telling investors that artificial intelligence would be key to the future of his company, Meta. In 2025, he plans to put his money where his mouth is.
On Friday, Zuckerberg said the company expects its capital expenditures in 2025 to be about $60 billion to $65 billion, a big increase from the roughly $38 billion to $40 billion Meta spent in 2024.
Much of that amount will go toward building and expanding data centers, the warehouse-sized buildings that provide the computing power that powers Meta’s products and artificial intelligence algorithms in its apps, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“This is a massive effort that will propel our core products and businesses, unlock historic innovations, and extend America’s technology leadership over the next few years,” Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page.
He noted that the company also expects to own more than 1.3 million graphics processing units, or GPUs, by the end of the year. A GPU is a type of computer chip that excels at the type of computing power required for artificial intelligence systems. As AI-powered apps and products have become more popular in recent years, there is a shortage of GPUs across the industry, with tech companies large and small competing to buy as many as possible from companies like Nvidia.
And despite numerous layoffs and cuts to the company’s workforce over the past three years, Zuckerberg said he plans to continue hiring “significantly” to grow the teams responsible for work on artificial intelligence and related products.
Meta’s share price rose about 1.7% on Friday.
Silicon Valley’s tech giants are engaged in an infrastructure arms race as they compete to build the future of artificial intelligence. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have committed billions of dollars to data center and infrastructure projects and have reported no slowdown in spending for the foreseeable future.
On Tuesday, President Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle called Stargate, which aims to invest at least $100 billion in US data centers. The group behind the project said it could invest up to half a trillion dollars in Stargate over the next four years. Elon Musk, who runs a competing artificial intelligence start-up, later questioned that figure.
Since Trump was elected in November, Zuckerberg has attempted to mend their long-strained relationship. Mr. Zuckerberg has repeatedly traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, donated to and attended his inauguration, and has loosened free speech restrictions on Meta’s apps, an issue that conservatives have fixated on for years.
Trump has promised to accelerate the production of American-made artificial intelligence to compete with China for global leadership in the technology. On Thursday, he signed an executive order aimed at “removing barriers” to the development of artificial intelligence in the United States.
Meta’s announcement on Friday could be seen as “a response to Stargate’s announcement earlier this week to remind investors of its position as a leader in artificial intelligence,” RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a research note. Meta will report its latest earnings next week, when details such as capital spending plans are typically announced to investors.
Meta has long signaled its intention to invest heavily in data centers. The company took on a $4.3 billion restructuring charge in 2023 after deciding to redesign many of its future data center projects to prepare for artificial intelligence projects. It has expanded its data center footprint to dozens of locations around the world, from Odense, Denmark, to Huntsville, Ala.
Zuckerberg has said he plans to continue spending heavily on infrastructure to support what he believes will be the future of computing, powered by AI chatbots and other programs.
This also includes Llama, Meta’s open source AI technology that is free to download by independent software developers to power their own AI apps.
Last year, Meta announced it would build its newest data center in Richland Parish, Los Angeles. The company said the building will span more than four million square feet, an area so large that Zuckerberg said it will “cover a significant portion of Manhattan.” .”
“Let’s go build!” he wrote on his Facebook page and added a flexing muscles emoji.