Mark Zuckerberg Promises Hundreds Of Billion Dollars For AI Data Center To Realize Superintelligence

JAKARTA Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, announced on Monday 14 July that his company will invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build several giant AI (artificial intelligence) data centers to achieve superintelligence. This move further intensified Meta's efforts to pursue the technology that has sparked a "talented war" to recruit the best engineers.

Meta, one of the tech giants that has struck a major deal and provided a million-dollar pay package in recent months, is determined to accelerate the development of machines capable of outperforming human capabilities in a variety of tasks.

Meta's first multi-gigawatt data center, named Myr, is expected to start operating in 2026. Meanwhile, another data center called Hyperion will be able to be upgraded to 5 gigawatts in the coming years.

Zuckerberg stated through his Spreads social media platform that Meta is also building several other "titian" clusters. "One of these alone covers most of Manhattan's footprint," the billionaire said, quoted by VOI from Reuters.

He also highlighted reports from the seminalysis industry publication that Meta was on track to become the first AI laboratory to operate a more gigawatt-powered supercluster.

Zuckerberg stressed the power of the company's core advertising business to justify this huge spending, amid investor concerns over whether the investment will come to fruition. "We have capital from our business to do this," he said. Meta shares are trading 1% higher, with an increase of more than 20% so far this year.

Meta, which generated nearly $165 billion in revenue last year, reorganized its AI efforts last month under a new division called Super Intelligence Labs. The reorganization comes after a setback in the open-source Llama 4 model and the departure of some key staff. The company is betting that the new division will generate new cash flows from the Meta AI app, image-to-video ads, and smart glasses.

DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria said that Meta is investing aggressively in AI because the technology has boosted its advertising business by allowing companies to sell more ads at higher prices.

"However, on this scale, investment is more long-term competition-oriented to have a leading AI model, which may take time to materialize," Luria added.

In recent weeks, Zuckerberg has personally led an aggressive "tal talent hunt" for Meta Super Intelligence Labs, which will be led by former CEO of Scale AI, Alexandr Wang, and former head of GitHub, Nat Friedman. This follows a $14.3 billion investment in Meta on Scale.

In April, Meta raised its estimated 2025 capital expenditure to between 64 billion and 72 billion US dollars, with the aim of strengthening the company's position against its competitors such as OpenAI and Google.