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, Mr. Zuckerberg said the company expects its capital expenditures in 2025 to reach an estimated $60 to $65 billion, a significant increase from the roughly $38 to $40 billion spent in 2024.
Much of that money will go toward building and expanding data centers, warehouse-sized buildings that provide the computing power that powers Meta’s AI products and algorithms across its applications, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“This is a tremendous effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and businesses, unleash historic innovation, and expand America’s technology leadership,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. He said in another To his Facebook page.
He noted that the company also expects to have more than 1.3 million graphics processing units, or GPUs, by the end of the year. A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a type of computer chip that excels at the type of computing power required for artificial intelligence systems. With AI-driven applications and products becoming increasingly popular in recent years, there is a shortage of GPUs across the industry, as tech companies large and small compete to buy as many as they can from companies like Nvidia.
Despite numerous layoffs and reductions in the company’s workforce over the past three years, Zuckerberg said he plans to continue hiring “aggressively” to grow the teams responsible for work on artificial intelligence and related products.
Meta’s share price rose about 1 percent in early trading on Friday.
Silicon Valley’s tech giants are locked in an infrastructure arms race, as they compete to build the future of artificial intelligence. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have allocated billions of dollars to data centers and infrastructure projects, and have not indicated any slowdown in spending in the foreseeable future.
On Tuesday, President Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle StargateWhich aims to invest at least $100 billion in American 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 AI startup, later Casts doubt on this number.
Since Mr. Trump’s election in November, Mr. Zuckerberg has tried to mend their long-strained relationship. Mr. Zuckerberg has traveled to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort several times, donated to and attended his inauguration and eased restrictions on speech via Meta apps, an issue conservatives have focused on for years.
Mr. Trump has promised to accelerate the production of American-made artificial intelligence to compete against China for global leadership in the technology. Signed on Thursday Executive order It aims to “remove barriers” to the development of artificial intelligence in the United States.
Meta has long indicated its intentions to invest heavily in data centers. The company incurred Restructuring fees of $4.3 billion In 2023 after it decided to redesign several of its future data center projects to prepare for AI projects. It has expanded its data center footprint to dozens of locations around the world, including Odense, Denmark, and Huntsville, Ala.
Mr. Zuckerberg said he plans to continue spending heavily on infrastructure to support what he believes will be the future of computing, powered by AI-powered chatbots and other software.
This also includes Llama, Meta’s open source AI technology that can be downloaded for free by independent software developers to run their own AI applications.
Last year, Meta announced that it would build its newest data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. The company said the building would span more than four million square feet, an area so large that Mr. Zuckerberg said it would “cover a significant portion of Manhattan.” “.
“Let’s go build!” he wrote on his Facebook page, adding a muscle flexing emoji.
