Meta eyes $29B for AI data centers in US
What's the story
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, is looking to raise a whopping $29 billion from private capital firms. The money will be used to build artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in the US. According to Financial Times, Meta has already started talks with private credit investors like Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, and Carlyle Group for this purpose.
Financial strategy
A look at the fundraising plan
Meta's fundraising plan involves raising $3 billion in equity and $26 billion in debt. The company is still figuring out how to structure this debt raising and may even look for more capital. This move comes as part of Meta's renewed focus on AI, including a huge $14.8 billion investment in start-up Scale AI.
AI investment
Zuckerberg's $65B AI infrastructure investment plan
Back in January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced plans to invest as much as $65 billion this year to bolster the company's AI infrastructure. The move is aimed at strengthening Meta's position against competitors OpenAI and Google in the race for dominance in the AI technology space.
Trend
Tech giants are investing in AI data centers
The push for AI data centers is part of a wider industry trend. Major tech firms are investing heavily to secure the computing power needed to run complex AI models. This has led to a surge in demand for specialized data centers that can connect thousands of chips into high-performance clusters. Microsoft, for instance, has allocated $80 billion in capital expenditures for fiscal 2025, mostly toward expanding its data center capacity for AI services.