MENLO PARK, California, Jan 29, 2026, 07:34 (PST)
- Meta forecast 2026 capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion, up from $72.22 billion in 2025.
- Fourth-quarter revenue rose 24% to $59.89 billion, while net income climbed to $22.77 billion.
- Meta guided first-quarter revenue to $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion and projected 2026 expenses of $162 billion to $169 billion.
Meta Platforms on Wednesday set a far higher capital spending plan for 2026, earmarking up to $135 billion to build out AI capacity as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg pushes what he calls “superintelligence.” Reuters
The scale matters now because Big Tech’s AI race has shifted from model demos to hard infrastructure — data centers, chips, and power — and investors have started to treat the bill as a test of discipline, not ambition.
Meta is leaning on its ad engine to pay for that buildout. The company’s latest results showed advertising still growing fast enough to cover heavier spending, at least for now, even as operating margins narrow.
Meta said fourth-quarter revenue rose 24% to $59.89 billion, while net income increased to $22.77 billion, or $8.88 per share. Total costs and expenses climbed 40% to $35.15 billion, the company reported, and capital expenditures for the quarter were $22.14 billion. Atmeta
For the current quarter, Meta projected revenue of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion. It also forecast full-year 2026 expenses of $162 billion to $169 billion, saying most of the increase will come from infrastructure costs — including third-party cloud spend, depreciation and operating expenses — with employee compensation the next biggest driver as it hires technical talent.
Meta’s 2026 capital expenditures guidance — often shortened to capex, meaning cash spent on long-lived assets such as servers and data centers — calls for $115 billion to $135 billion, including principal payments on finance leases. The company said the spending step-up is tied to its Meta Superintelligence Labs efforts and its core business.
On the earnings call, CFO Susan Li said Meta expects capacity constraints through much of 2026, Reuters reported. Meta has been leaning more on outside cloud capacity, including deals that route spending to providers such as Alphabet’s Google, as it tries to add computing power faster.
The bulk of Meta’s profit still comes from its “Family of Apps” segment — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. In the fourth quarter, that unit posted $58.94 billion in revenue and $30.77 billion of operating income, while Reality Labs produced $955 million in revenue and a $6.02 billion operating loss, the results showed.
Wall Street’s worry is simple: spending can get ahead of growth. “If there were any signs of revenue shortfall, investors would look at the capital expenditures more negatively,” said Debra Aho Williamson, chief analyst at Sonata Insights. Shares rose 10.9% in after-hours trading to $741.88. Apnews
Some investors argue the market is still pricing Meta off its ad cash flows rather than any AI payoff. John Belton, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, called Meta’s “valuation … not that demanding,” while cautioning that returns are still coming mainly from the core business, Reuters reported.
But the bet comes with risks. A capex surge can squeeze margins if ad demand slows, and “superintelligence” remains a theoretical target — not a product line with a timetable. Meta also flagged legal and regulatory headwinds in the European Union and the United States, including youth-related scrutiny and U.S. trials scheduled this year that could lead to a material loss.
The backdrop is a broader spending wave across Big Tech. Microsoft, which also reported results Wednesday, said its capital outlay jumped 66% in the December quarter, but its shares fell after hours when cloud growth only narrowly topped estimates, Reuters reported. Meta’s forward valuation has stayed below some large peers, trading at 22.2 times next-12-month earnings estimates versus 29.5 for Alphabet and 27.1 for Microsoft, according to LSEG data.
