Jakarta, INTI - Meta predicts the company's capital expenditure in 2026 will exceed US$10 billion. Meta's total investment this year reached US$145 billion. The US tech giant appears serious about building a larger artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. This is because they are lagging behind other tech companies like Google and OpenAI.
In 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged and announced a major effort to catch up in the AI race. Since then, Meta has been actively pursuing research and development and recruiting talent from across the industry, including bringing in Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead Meta's new AI division, Superintelligence Labs.
Launch of Muse Spark AI after Metaverse Failure
According to a Gizmodo report, many are quite concerned about this commitment, given Meta's previous failure to develop the Metaverse. The Reality Labs division, which developed the Metaverse, recorded an operating loss of over US$4 billion and generated only US$402 million in sales.
Meta has unveiled the first results of this multi-billion-dollar investment with the launch of the Muse Spark AI model. This model will be open-sourced in the future. Zuckerberg said that the model is the frist release from Meta Superintelligence Labs.
This year, Meta aims to launch two Agentic AI models for consumers and businesses. Meta is also integrating new AI models into parts of its core business, such as advertising, and specifically into its recommendation system. The goal is for the AI to hyper-personalize user feeds.
Conclusion
Meta is increasing capital expenditures to a total of approximately US$145 billion by 2026 to accelerate the development of its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and catch up with competitors like Google and OpenAI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing for significant investment in research and development. While this move raised concerns due to previous failures in the Metaverse, Meta is beginning to show results with the launch of its Muse Spark AI model and plans to develop Agentic AI.
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