The AI boom is less a marathon of innovation and more a spending sprint as companies pour billions to maintain their spot in the AI race. Now, Meta is spending on a scale that puts the company above most countries’ military budgets.
Meta plans to spend up to $145 billion in capital expenditure in 2026, a roughly 101% jump from the $72.2 billion it spent just one year earlier. The company says the expenditures will fund its core business, with the higher component prices and additional data center costs adding to the increase. And according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AI will be a “significant portion” of that total spend. Reuters also reported that the increase is tied to the company’s computing infrastructure and cloud agreements.
“As AI usage in our products and businesses continues to ramp, we continue to invest aggressively in infrastructure to meet the demand,” Zuckerberg said in Meta’s Q2 2026 earnings call. “We expect that a significant portion of our compute is going to go towards training our models, growing our core business and delivering personal agents and new products, but we also expect to grow a large business serving large customers as well.”
Zuckerberg described 2026 as a pivotal year for Meta’s effort to build what he calls a “superintelligence.”
“The opportunity in front of us is massive,” he said. “We are now at a point where our investments in AI are accelerating every major part of our core business. They’re improving the experience for people using our apps, driving better performance for advertisers, and helping our teams build new experiences and ship faster.”
“We’re developing new personal agents that will be the foundation for our next wave of products and revenue lines in the months and years ahead,” he continued. “We see a large enterprise opportunity to sell to businesses, including APIs, business agents, potentially selling compute directly, and other services that we’re building for large customers.”
The $145 billion capex puts Meta above every country’s military budget from 2025, save for the United States, China and Russia.
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According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. spent $954 billion on the military in 2025, followed by China at an estimated $336 billion and Russia at an estimated $190 billion. (Germany currently spends $113 billion at fourth, and India follows with a budget of $92 billion).
Bills for big tech
Meta’s capex has accelerated as the company shifted its focus toward AI. On top of the $145 billion capex forecast, Meta also projects the total expenses in 2026 to reach up to $169 billion, which, according to Reuters, reflects the higher compensation and recruitment of AI talent and infrastructure spending.
Meta’s recorded capex was $28.1 billion in 2023, compared to $39.23 billion in 2024 and $72.22 billion in 2025—according to SEC filings. That exceeded Meta’s own forecasts ahead of last year, as the company originally projected the expenditures in 2025 to reach up to $65 billion.
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Additionally, Meta spent $27.05 billion on property and equipment in 2023, $37.26 billion in 2024 and $69.69 billion in 2025.
“AI is accelerating our core business today, powering our next generation of products, and opening the door to entirely new enterprise opportunities,” Zuckerberg said in a press release. “The results are already showing, and I’m optimistic about the potential ahead.”
Much of that infrastructure supports the computing requirements of Meta’s AI systems. The company has been building large data centers and securing access to computing capacity from outside providers.
Across the AI giants, infrastructure and spending has not slowed down. According to a report from Reuters, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are on track to spend about $730 billion on AI in 2026. That’s up from previous estimates of $600 billion.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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