Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, Inc., during the MetaConnect event on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 in Menlo Park, California, USA.
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Meta When it comes to artificial intelligence, CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously argues that it’s better to invest in too much than too little.
During the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg cited Meta’s significant spending this year, particularly its $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI as part of a planned overhaul of its AI division, now known as Superintelligence Labs.
Some skeptics worry that spending from Meta and its AI competitors, namely OpenAI, is fueling a bubble.
To ensure that Meta’s new group has enough computing power to pursue cutting-edge AI models, the company is building large data centers and signing cloud computing deals with companies such as: oracleGoogle, CoreWeave.
Zuckerberg said the company is seeing a “pattern” and that Meta will likely require even more power than originally estimated. He said that over time, this increased investment in AI will ultimately pay off in big ways.
“The fact that we can make a fairly large investment here is very likely to pay off over a period of time,” Zuckerberg said on a conference call.
Zuckerberg said that if Meta overspends on AI-related computing resources, the company can repurpose that power and improve its core recommendation system “in a profitable way across our apps and ad families.”
Meta, like its rivals, has raised expectations for capital investment.
According to the company, capital spending this year is expected to be between $70 billion and $72 billion, compared to the previous forecast of $66 billion to $72 billion.
meanwhile, alphabet On Wednesday, it raised its capital spending range to $91 billion to $93 billion from its previous target of $75 billion to $85 billion. and, Microsoft’s In an earnings call after the bell, the company said it now expects capital spending growth to accelerate in 2026, after previously expecting expansion to slow.
Alphabet was the only company among the three whose stock price soared, with shares up 6% in after-hours trading. Meta stock fell about 8%, and Microsoft fell more than 3%.
Zuckerberg floated the idea that if Meta acquired excess computing power, it could offer some of it to third parties. But that’s still not an issue, he said.
“Obviously, if we end up overbuilding, that’s an option we have,” Zuckerberg said.
Mr. Zuckerberg said that in a “very worst case scenario,” Meta would have several years’ worth of excess data center capacity. That would incur “losses and depreciation” of certain assets, he said, but the company would “grow within them and use them over time.”
For now, Meta’s advertising business continues to grow at a healthy pace thanks to its investments in AI.
“Now that we’re seeing returns in our core business, that gives us a lot of confidence that we should invest more, and we want to make sure we’re not underinvesting,” Zuckerberg said.
Third-quarter sales rose 26% year over year to $51.24 billion, beating analysts’ expectations of $49.41 billion and marking the company’s highest growth rate since the first quarter of 2024.
WATCH: Meta reports higher third-quarter profit, company collects one-time tax;
