New York, February 25, 2026, 16:30 (ET) — After-hours
- Meta shares picked up roughly 2% during regular hours, holding steady after the close.
- Meta’s latest supply agreement with AMD secures long-term AI chip access and comes with an attached warrant, terms linked directly to actual shipments.
- The White House is bringing together Big Tech and major energy companies for a March 4 commitment targeting data-center power costs.
Meta Platforms climbed 2.3% to close at $653.83 Wednesday, then edged up another 0.05% after hours, sitting at $654.02 as the market weighed new information on the company’s AI infrastructure efforts.
The stock’s now shorthand for something larger—just how aggressively Big Tech snaps up chips and power, and how patient investors will be before they insist on results. Meta’s ads still generate plenty of cash. But it’s the AI expansion that markets keep recalibrating.
It’s happening in Washington as well. The White House plans to bring together leading data-center firms and energy producers on March 4, pressing them to sign a voluntary agreement to help keep power costs in check as AI-driven demand surges.
Meta’s latest chip order lands squarely amid the ongoing rush for supply. Advanced Micro Devices has lined up as much as $60 billion in AI chip sales to Meta over the next five years. The deal secures six gigawatts of compute, with AMD’s MI450 hardware delivering the first one gigawatt in the back half of 2026. According to Reuters, that single gigawatt could power about 750,000 homes—a snapshot of just how much energy this new AI boom demands.
The equity sweetener stands out. According to an AMD filing, the chipmaker granted Meta a performance-driven warrant covering as many as 160 million AMD shares. The exercise price: just $0.01 per share. Tranches vest as Meta hits shipment targets, but each is also contingent on AMD’s stock hitting progressively higher hurdles—reaching as high as $600 a share for the last tranche. Warrants give the holder the right to buy shares at a preset price; in this case, Meta’s ability to exercise them depends directly on AMD’s market performance.
Meta and AMD pitched the move as a strategic bet for the years ahead, not just a quarterly play. “We’re excited to form a long-term partnership with AMD to deploy efficient inference compute and deliver personal superintelligence,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said—here, “inference” refers to the processing that happens when AI churns out user responses. AMD chief Lisa Su cast the deal as a deepening alliance, as Meta ramps up AI “at unprecedented scale.” AMD
For some investors, it’s not the marketing talk that matters—it’s how the deals are put together. In a column for Reuters’ Breakingviews, analyst Gadjo Sevilla at eMarketer described this as a “closed-loop hyperscaler” trend, with the biggest AI players locking in hardware through mutual commitments. Over at AJ Bell, head of markets Dan Coatsworth flagged a different concern: he sees the “return of circular transactions” as yet another risk for investors to track. Reuters
AI supply chain stocks keep whipping around — even when the broader indexes barely budge. Take Tuesday: AMD’s Meta announcement sent Meta shares nudging up just 0.3%, as flagged by Reuters, but AMD itself surged.
Meta’s longstanding problems haven’t gone away. This month, a court filing out of New Mexico surfaced internal alarms at the company: encrypting Messenger, staff warned, could undercut Meta’s ability to identify child-exploitation incidents. Back in 2019, then content policy chief Monika Bickert didn’t mince words in a chat, “We are about to do a bad thing as a company. This is so irresponsible.” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded that extra safety measures were added before default end-to-end encryption launched in 2023. Reuters
Across markets, traders are working to parse out short-term disruption jitters versus bigger-picture AI hopes. “AI will continue to disrupt the world but I don’t think it’s the end of the world,” said Ken Polcari, chief market strategist at Slatestone Wealth, speaking to Reuters on Wednesday’s tech action. Reuters
Meta gave investors something to circle on their calendars: CFO Susan Li is set to appear at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on March 4, scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Pacific. The session will stream live on Meta’s investor relations page.
The risks aren’t hard to spot: higher capex, power markets under strain, and intensifying arguments over grid upgrade costs. And investors haven’t minced words—AI might shake up business models before any payoff arrives. “The disruption concerns are more acute right now than worries over return on investment,” Horizon Investments’ Zach Hill told Reuters in a recent market report. Reuters
Nvidia’s results are in focus next, with options markets bracing for about a 5.6% move after earnings—one of the smaller swings priced in recent years. Then comes the March 4 double: the White House’s power pledge lands, and Meta’s CFO takes the stage at Morgan Stanley.
