Meta plans to spend $145 billion this year, more than every military budget except the U.S., China and Russia

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. https://www.datawrapper.de/_/WNHjv 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.