Meta Plans Record $65bn AI Investment and 2GW Data Centre

The race to build AI infrastructure has entered a new phase as technology companies commit hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the computing capacity needed for next-generation AI systems.

The sector faces unprecedented demand for computing power as companies develop more sophisticated AI models. Traditional data centres, designed for web hosting and cloud computing, lack the specialised hardware and power supply needed to train and run these systems.

This pressure has sparked a wave of infrastructure investment across the technology sector. Companies are planning facilities that would have been unthinkable five years ago, with power requirements matching those of small cities.

Amid this ever-growing demand, Meta has announced plans to invest US$65bn in AI infrastructure during 2025, including a new data centre with power consumption equivalent to two nuclear power stations.

Meta’s investment in AI development and infrastructure

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, announced via Facebook that the social media company plans to construct a data centre requiring more than two gigawatts of power and housing 1.3 million graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia.

“This will be a defining year for AI,” he states. “In 2025, I expect Meta AI will be the leading assistant serving more than one billion people, Llama 4 will become the leading state of the art model and we’ll build an AI engineer that will start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D efforts.”

The scale of the proposed facility would occupy “a significant part of Manhattan,” according to Zuckerberg. The company plans to activate one gigawatt of computing capacity in 2025, representing the first phase of the project.

The investment forms part of Meta’s strategy to strengthen its position in the global technology sector. The company plans to expand its AI offerings while increasing its research and development capabilities.

Technology sector accelerates AI infrastructure development

The announcement follows the creation of the Stargate project, a US$500bn investment consortium led by OpenAI, which develops the ChatGPT language model, and SoftBank, the Japanese technology investment firm.

The initiative aims to establish shared computing facilities across the United States, beginning with installations in Texas. Enterprise software firm Oracle and Microsoft, which provides cloud computing services, have joined as equity partners.

The developments reflect growing pressure on computing resources within the AI sector. Large language models (LLMs) – the AI systems that power chatbots and text generation tools – require computing power that exceeds the capacity of traditional data centres.

Meta's infrastructure transformation and US partnerships

Meta has previously invested in global data centre infrastructure, with facilities in Odense, Denmark and Huntsville, Alabama. In 2023, the company spent US$4.3bn restructuring its data centre designs to accommodate AI systems.

The restructuring represented a shift in Meta's infrastructure strategy, preparing its facilities for the computational demands of AI technology. This latest announcement builds upon these earlier investments.

“We’ll bring online ~1GW of compute in 2025 and we'll end the year with more than 1.3 million GPUs. We're planning to invest US$60-65bn in capex this year while also growing our AI teams significantly and we have the capital to continue investing in the years ahead,” Zuckerberg explains.

He adds: “This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership.”

US government collaboration and global technology policy

The company has indicated plans to collaborate with the new US administration on technology policy and industry regulation. Meta aims to work with the US government to address global regulatory challenges facing technology companies. The collaboration reflects broader concerns about international technology regulation and content moderation.

“We're going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” Zuckerberg states. “The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government.”

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