Meta Increases Capital Expenditure Guidance as It Builds AI Infrastructure at Scale
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) has raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance for 2026 to a range of $130 billion to $145 billion, nearly doubling from the previous year. This significant increase reflects Meta's aggressive investment in building large-scale AI infrastructure and expanding data centers and network capabilities. The company’s Q2 free cash flow fell by 91%, with operating margins dropping sharply due to these capital-intensive efforts. Meta is positioning itself as a potential mega cloud provider, competing directly with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly been approached about reselling compute resources at a premium, signaling Meta's growing influence in the AI infrastructure space. The company ended Q2 2026 with $90.3 billion in cash and marketable securities but also reported $83.7 billion in debt. Despite financial strain from its capital investments, Meta’s stock has shown resilience over recent months, rising by more than 25% in the past month as of September 18, 2026.
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Topics: AI infrastructure capex guidance cloud computing Meta