Meta to Spend Up to $135B in 2026 to Build Superintelligence Unit

Meta said it will sharply increase its AI capital expenditure in 2026 as it builds out a new “Superintelligence Unit.” The global tech giant put the planned AI capex at $115–$135 billion for the year, a large jump versus prior years.

The company described the increase as driven mainly by infrastructure needs (data centres, servers and related depreciation) and higher operating costs to support large-scale AI development.

Meta said some of that infrastructure spending includes payments to third-party cloud providers (including Google) and higher depreciation from its own AI data-centre assets.

The company has been able to fund much of its heavy AI spending from a strong advertising business: management reported advertising revenue of about $58.14 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $46.78 billion a year earlier.

"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," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the post earnings conference call.

Meta Q4 Performance

On results, Meta delivered a strong quarter: profit of $22.8 billion on nearly $60 billion in revenue. Expenses rose, however, operating costs climbed about 40% year-on-year to $35.15 billion, and capital expenditure for the quarter was $22.14 billion, largely for data-centre and AI infrastructure. Management guided revenue for the current quarter up to around $56.5 billion.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed 2026 as a pivotal year: “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,” he said on the post-earnings call. Meta expects 2026 to be a major investment year as it scales both its Superintelligence Labs and product integrations.

Meta Data Centre Play

Meta has also recently signed a $6 billion deal with Gorilla Glass maker Corning to supply fibre-optic cable for its AI data centres, CNBC reported. In an interview with CNBC, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks said Meta has committed to pay the amount to the glass maker through 2030.

The deal comes shortly after Meta earlier this month announced “Meta Compute,” a new initiative focused on scaling its AI infrastructure and overseeing its global fleet of data centres and supplier partnerships. Through this push, Meta is rapidly building massive data centres around the world as it looks to keep pace in the intensifying AI race.