Meta plans up to $145 billion in 2026 capital spending as AI and personal agents scale
Meta estimates up to $145 billion in 2026 capital expenditures, money for chips, servers, and data centers, Fortune's Joshua Hong reports (Sep. 24). That is a roughly 101% jump from the $72.2 billion Meta spent a year earlier. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says artificial intelligence will be a "significant portion" of the total. Fortune says higher component prices and additional data-center costs are adding to the increase.
On Meta's Q2 2026 earnings call, Zuckerberg said, "As AI usage in our products and businesses continues to ramp, we continue to invest aggressively in infrastructure to meet the demand." He expects a significant portion of compute to go toward training models, growing the core business, and delivering personal agents and new products. Personal agents are the always-on assistants Meta wants as new product and revenue lines. He framed 2026 as pivotal for building what he calls "superintelligence."
Fortune, using Stockholm International Peace Research Institute figures for 2025 military budgets, notes that figure exceeds every country's 2025 military spend except the United States ($954 billion), China (about $336 billion), and Russia (about $190 billion). Germany is cited at $113 billion and India at $92 billion. Fortune is putting a private capital budget next to public defense spending.
Meta also guided total 2026 expenses up to $169 billion, reflecting higher pay and hiring for AI talent plus infrastructure. Across Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, Fortune cites a Reuters track of about $730 billion on AI in 2026.
The same product week Meta is staging new glasses and wearables at Connect, a private company is pricing a superintelligence and personal-agents year in capital spending Fortune can put next to national defense budgets.
The glasses get the photos. The capex line is the bet.
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