Business News
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has the Meta Group invest huge sums in AI infrastructure. Investors are getting nervous.
July 29, 2026, 11:02 p.mJuly 29, 2026, 11:02 p.m
The Facebook group Meta has disappointed Wall Street with its outlook for the current quarter. The share temporarily lost more than six percent in after-hours US trading. Meta forecast sales of between $61 and $64 billion for the current quarter, while analysts on average had expected around $63 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg is investing huge sums in AI data centers with Meta.Image: keystone
This time, when forecasting investments in AI infrastructure, Meta only raised the lower end of the range from $125 to $130 billion. The expected cap on capital investment remained at $145 billion. In 2025, the company spent a good $72 billion on this.
The AI race carries risks
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has great ambitions to surpass rivals such as ChatGPT developer OpenAI as well as Google and Elon Musk’s AI company xAI in artificial intelligence. He is prepared to spend billions on this – even with the risk of building up too much data center capacity. Some experts and investors are now doubting whether the money can be earned back.
The Facebook Group’s booming advertising business continues to provide the money for AI expansion. In the last quarter, Meta increased sales by 28 percent year-on-year to $60.8 billion. The bottom line was that there was a profit of around $15.85 billion – 14 percent less than a year earlier.
3.6 billion users recently accessed at least one meta app. Three months earlier it was 3.56 billion. The group also includes the chat service WhatsApp, the photo and video platform Instagram and Threads, an alternative to Musk’s Twitter successor X. (sda/dpa)