Information technology Facebook Group wants to accelerate AI expansion
The Facebook group Meta is stepping up the pace of investment in artificial intelligence. This year, capital investments are set to reach up to 72 billion dollars. Meta has announced even higher expenditure for 2026, without giving a specific figure.
29.10.2025, 22:40
30.10.2025, 03:31
SDA
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call with analysts that Meta wants to lead the industry in terms of available computing power. The company is "aggressively" expanding the capacity of its data centers in anticipation of a drastic increase in demand due to the widespread use of artificial intelligence. If AI needs more time, the additional computing power will be used for other applications, such as better recommendations.
The head of Meta has big ambitions to overtake rivals such as the ChatGPT developer OpenAI as well as Google and Elon Musk's company xAI in artificial intelligence. To this end, he poached experts from competitors with exceptionally high offers.
Advertising business is booming
The money spent on the expensive expansion of the data centers is earning Meta a booming advertising business. Turnover rose by 26 percent year-on-year to 51.24 billion dollars. At least one of the Group's apps was accessed by 3.54 billion users every day. In addition to Facebook, Meta also includes the photo and video platform Instagram and the chat app WhatsApp. Instagram alone has three billion daily users, as Zuckerberg said.
AI is not the only area in which the Facebook founder is prepared to boldly spend billions without any guarantee of success. The Reality Labs division, in which computer glasses and virtual worlds are developed, posted an operating loss of a good 4.4 billion dollars, as in the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, turnover increased from 270 to 470 million dollars with the launch of new AI glasses with a camera and microphone.
Zuckerberg was confident that it would "eventually" be a profitable investment. Meta wants to reach "hundreds of millions or billions of people" with the devices.
One-off huge tax payment
Meanwhile, there was a setback in profits due to changes in accounting. The budget law passed by US President Donald Trump in the summer will mean that the company will pay less tax in the long term, Meta explained. However, a reorganization in connection with the law resulted in a one-off tax burden of 15.93 billion dollars. As a result, the quarterly profit shrank to 2.7 billion dollars. This was 83 percent less than a year earlier.
