Meta’s capex inflation: Mark Zuckerberg’s AI appetite and the Trump tariffs are boosting infrastructure spending to as much as $72 billion

If Mark Zuckerberg has a limit to how much he’s willing to spend on infrastructure to win the AI race, the CEO of Meta is doing a great job of hiding it.

On Wednesday, the social networking company boosted its capital expenditure plans by billions of dollars for at least the third consecutive quarter, even as rival Microsoft has eased up slightly on data center plans amid economic uncertainty and concerns that the industry’s feverish spending could result in overcapacity.

Meta said Wednesday that it now expects its 2025 capital expenditure to range between $64 billion and $72 billion, a sharp step up from the $60 billion to $65 billion range it forecast just three months ago, and an astounding sum compared to the $28 billion in annual capex that Meta spent just two years ago in 2023.

"The pace of progress across the industry and the opportunities ahead for us are staggering," Zuckerberg said on the company's earnings call Wednesday, as he stressed Meta's goal of developing an even more capable level of AI he called "full general intelligence."

"I want to make sure that we're working aggressively and efficiently and I also want to make sure that we are building out the leading infrastructure and teams to achieve our goals," he said.

"To that end, we are accelerating some of our efforts to bring capacity online more quickly this year as well as some longer term projects that will give us the flexibility to add capacity in the coming years," Zuckerberg said. "And that has increased our planned investment for this year."

Meta’s stock jumped more than 5% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, as the social networking giant announced quarterly earnings results that topped Wall Street expectations and a strong revenue forecast for the current quarter. Microsoft also reported better-than-expected financial results on Wednesday, sending its shares up roughly 7% in after hours trading.

Meta said it expects Q2 revenue to range between $42.5 billion and $45.5 billion, which would represent year-on-year growth of between 9% and 16%. The average analyst expectation called for Q2 revenue of $43.81 billion.With the markets in turmoil amid the Trump-imposed tariffs and the recent report of slowing growth in the U.S. economy, it was not clear if Meta would provide a forecast for the second quarter.

The tariff effect on data center hardware

Meta said some of its increased capex was due to "an increase in the expected cost of infrastructure hardware," a reference to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on key components in data centers.

"The higher costs we expect to incur for infrastructure hardware this year really comes from suppliers who source from countries around the world," Meta CFO Susan Li said on the call. "There’s just a lot of uncertainty around this given the ongoing trade discussions," she said, noting that the company was trying to mitigate some of the cost increases by "optimizing our supply chain."

Strong demand from advertisers—particularly from online retailers—in the first quarter drove a 16% increase in Meta's revenue, while the company's efforts keeping spending in check and share buybacks led to $6.43 in EPS, besting Wall Street's EPS target of $5.22.

The strength Meta cited in its advertising business offered a counterpoint to rival social media site Snap, which cited business "headwinds" in its earnings report earlier this week and said it would not offer a forecast for the current quarter because of the economic conditions. Google parent company Alphabet also declined to offer revenue guidance when it reported results last week, though the company's Q1 results came in stronger than expected.

Alphabet re-affirmed its plans to spend $75 billion in capex this year as it pushes forward in the AI race.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com