According to Mark Zuckerberg, part of the money will be used to recruit positions related to artificial intelligence (AI) and build data centers with a capacity of more than 2 gigawatts (GW).

Facebook's parent company aims to have more than 1.3 million GPUs by the end of the year and bring about 1GW of computing power online by 2025.

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Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want Meta to come in second in the AI ​​race. Photo: Bloomberg

“This will be the defining year of AI,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “This is a massive effort, and in the years ahead, it will accelerate our core business and products, unlock historic innovation, and extend America’s technology leadership.”

The $60 billion to $65 billion budget is well above analysts' estimates and up from an estimated $38 billion by 2024. A year ago, Meta broke ground on six new data centers.

Major tech companies are investing tens of billions of dollars to develop AI infrastructure following the success of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot.

Just a few days ago, US President Donald Trump announced the Stargate alliance between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle that will invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure across the US.

In early January, Microsoft revealed plans to spend about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on data center development, while Amazon also said this year's spending would be higher than the $75 billion in 2024.

Analyst Gil Luria said Zuckerberg’s move signaled that he did not want to be a runner-up in the AI ​​race. “The timing of the announcement seems to have been influenced by the Stargate project.”

Meta has emerged as a formidable player in the AI ​​market with its AI chatbot, Ray-Ban smart glasses, and open-source-first approach.

Zuckerberg's company stands out from its rivals by allowing users and most businesses to use the Llama AI model for free.

Zuckerberg hopes Meta's AI assistant will serve more than 1 billion users by 2025, up from 600 million last year.

(According to WSJ)