Meta ramps up spending on superintelligence, shares jump

Meta Platforms on Wednesday sharply raised its capital spending plans for 2026, boosting investment by 73% as it accelerates its push toward what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “superintelligence” highly personalized artificial intelligence for its billions of social media users.

Investors welcomed the aggressive strategy. Meta shares surged 10% in extended trading after the company reported a 24% jump in advertising revenue for the quarter ended December 31 and forecast first-quarter revenue above Wall Street expectations.

“This is going to be a big year for delivering personal superintelligence, accelerating our business infrastructure for the future and shaping how our company will work going forward,” Zuckerberg told analysts on a conference call.

Meta said it now expects capital expenditure for 2026 to range between $115 billion and $135 billion, driven largely by infrastructure costs. These include payments to third-party cloud providers such as Alphabet’s Google, higher depreciation tied to AI data center assets, and rising operating expenses to support its growing AI footprint.

The new guidance tops analyst expectations of about $109.9 billion, according to Visible Alpha, and represents a sharp increase from the $72.22 billion Meta spent last year.

A relatively late entrant to the AI race, Meta has doubled down on its ambitions, aiming to reach superintelligence a theoretical milestone where machines outperform humans in many cognitive tasks. To support that goal, the company plans to build several massive AI data centers and significantly expand its computing capacity.

So far, Meta has funded its swelling AI bill with a strong advertising business. Fourth-quarter ad revenue climbed to $58.14 billion, up from $46.78 billion a year earlier. However, capital spending rose even faster, jumping 49% and contributing to a seven-percentage-point decline in operating margin.

Over the past year, Meta has also expanded monetization across its platforms, launching ads on WhatsApp and Threads. That move puts it in more direct competition with Elon Musk’s X, while Instagram Reels continues to battle TikTok and YouTube Shorts in the fast-growing short-video market.