Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., arrives for the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta has been so quick to build out its massive data center and computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence projects that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is even a bit surprised.
In a call with analysts on Wednesday after Meta’s third-quarter earnings report, Zuckerberg explained to investors how Meta’s rising costs for the year are tied to the speed at which employees are able to get data centers, servers and chips for AI up and running.
“Going into the year, we had a range for what we thought we could potentially do, and we’ve been able to do more than we’ve kind of hoped and expected at the beginning of the year,” Zuckerberg said.
It also means investors have to buckle up for higher expenses. Meta raised the low end of its capital expenditures guidance for 2024 to $38 billion from $37 billion. The top end is still $40 billion.
“It’s actually something that I’m quite happy that the team is executing well on,” Zuckerberg said. “That execution makes me somewhat more optimistic that we’re going to be able to keep on building this out at a good pace.”
Meta added that the expenditures, which include purchases of billions of dollars worth of Nvidia’s graphics processing units, will grow significantly in 2025.
Meta shares dipped in extended trading on Wednesday despite the company beating on earnings and revenue. Weaker-than-expected user growth was part of the concern, along with rising costs.
On the earnings call, Barclays analyst Ross Sandler asked Zuckerberg how quickly Meta can build the immense computing infrastructure needed to reach its goals around generative AI, given possible barriers like energy requirements and the time needed to develop its own custom AI-specific chips.
Zuckerberg responded by complimenting Meta’s infrastructure team, which he said was “executing quite well” in building out more computing capacity for various AI projects like the Llama family of large language models.
Wall Street has grown concerned that tech giants like Meta and Alphabet are spending too much on infrastructure without seeing immediate returns. It’s a theme Zuckerberg acknowledged in an interview in July with Bloomberg, telling Emily Chang that there’s a chance that companies are “overbuilding now.” However, the risks of underinvesting are too great, he said.
“The formula around building out the infrastructure is maybe not what investors want to hear in the near term, that we’re growing that,” Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. “But, I just think that the opportunities here are really big, we’re going to continue investing significantly in this and I’m proud of the teams that are doing great work to stand up a large amount of capacity so that way we can deliver world-class models and world-class products.”
It’s not the only place where investors have to stomach hefty expenses.
Meta’s Reality Labs unit, home of metaverse technologies, posted an operating loss of $4.4 billion in the third quarter. The company said it expects “2024 operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts and investments to further scale our ecosystem.”
In this photo illustration, the logo of TikTok is displayed on a smartphone screen on April 5, 2025 in Shanghai, China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. business, which will be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle and Silver Lake, CNBC’s David Faber reported.
It’s the fourth time Trump has extended the deadline. The extension, as described in an executive order, precludes the Department of Justice from enforcing a national security law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. until Dec. 16.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday that a “framework deal” had been reached involving TikTok. Under the national security law, which would have come into effect on Wednesday, app store operators like Apple and Google and internet service providers would be penalized for providing services to TikTok’s U.S. operations if a deal was not reached.
Under the framework deal, about 80% of TikTok’s U.S. business would be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported. As part of the arrangement, existing U.S. users would need to shift to a new app, according to report.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected on Friday to discuss the terms of the TikTok-related deal that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday.
The deal, which is expected to close in the next 30 to 45 days, includes new investors, existing ByteDance investors and will result in Oracle maintaining its cloud computing agreement with TikTok, CNBC’s David Faber reported earlier on Tuesday.
Bessent said Tuesday during CNBC’s Squawk Box that Trump was willing to let TikTok “go dark,” which spurred China to agree to a deal. The Treasury Secretary said that the deal’s commercial terms had already been finalized “in essence” since March or April, but China put the deal on hold following Trump’s tough tariffs and trade policies.
“We were able to reach a series of agreements, mostly for things we will not be doing in the future that have no effect on our national security,” Bessent said Tuesday.
A senior White House official said in a statement that, “Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they are announced by this administration.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at Microsoft Build AI Day in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 30, 2024.
Adek Berry | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON — Microsoft said on Tuesday that it plans to invest $30 billion in the U.K. by 2028, as the company builds out its artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The investment includes an additional $15.5 billion in capital expansion and $15.1 billion in its U.K. operations, Microsoft said. The company said the investment would enable it to build the U.K.’s “largest supercomputer,” with more than 23,000 advanced graphics processing units, in partnership with Nscale, a British cloud computing firm.
The spending commitment comes as President Donald Trump embarks on a state visit to Britain. Trump arrived in the U.K. Tuesday evening and is set to be greeted at Windsor Castle on Wednesday by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
During his visit, all eyes are on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is under pressure to bring stability to the country after the exit of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over a house tax scandal and a major cabinet reshuffle.
“I haven’t always been optimistic every single day about the business climate in the U.K.,” Smith said. However, he added, “I am very encouraged by the steps that the government has taken over the last few years.”
“Just a few years ago, this kind of investment would have been inconceivable because of the regulatory climate then and because there just wasn’t the need or demand for this kind of large AI investment,” Smith said.
Starmer and Trump are expected to sign a new deal Wednesday “to unlock investment and collaboration in AI, Quantum, and Nuclear technologies,” the government said in a statement late Tuesday.
Waymo partners with Uber to bring robotaxi service to Atlanta and Austin.
Uber Technologies Inc.
Alphabet-owned Waymo obtained a permit to start testing its robotaxis at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and the company announced Tuesday.
Waymo will partner with the airport to roll out its commercial robotaxi service in phases, “beginning with employee testing soon ahead of welcoming Bay Area riders,” company spokesperson Chris Bonelli told CNBC.
That means the robotaxis will start with human drivers on board, ready to take control of the vehicles if needed, and eventually operate as a driverless ride-hail service.
Waymo is already operating its service in San Mateo County, where the airport is based, and in nearby San Francisco, but it does not yet have permission to ferry passengers to or from the airport.
In 2022, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport gave Waymo permission to test and operate its service there, and earlier this month, Waymo secured a permit to begin testing at San Jose Mineta International Airport.
Last month, Lurie said Waymo could operate a limited passenger service on one of San Francisco’s main thoroughfares, Market Street, where such services had previously been restricted.
For its general robotaxi service, Waymo now operates in Phoenix, parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta.
Tesla began testing a robotaxi service in Austin in June, with human safety supervisors on board. The Elon Musk-led company is also in discussions with San Francisco Bay Area airports. Tesla has permission to operate a paid car service in San Francisco, but not to run a driverless ride-hailing business there.
Tesla does not currently sell vehicles that are safe to use without a person in the car, ready to take over steering or braking at any time.