Meta Expected to Spend Billions on Data Centers in 2025

Top tech giants are investing heavily in data centers across the country. Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to be left behind.

Meta’s capital expenditures for this year are expected to range from $60 billion to $65 billion, the New York Times reported, citing a Facebook post from the company leader. That’s a massive jump from the $38 billion to $40 billion the company spent last year.

There are various items that could qualify as capital expenditures, but real estate is a big piece of that. Much of the estimated capital expenditure budget for the company is expected to go towards building and expanding data centers with a focus on fueling the company’s artificial intelligence algorithms.

Data centers are popping up at a comparatively high rate in the United States as technology companies try to enhance their computing power. They come with significant drawbacks, however, including draining resources for energy companies, environmental concerns and tepid interest from residents to live near the colossal structures.

Meta has invested in data centers before, though nowhere near the level it’s expecting to this year. In 2023, the company incurred a $4.3 billion restructuring charge because it decided to redesign its data center projects to fit into its growing AI needs.

Last year, the company announced it would build a 4-million-square-foot data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. In 2022, Meta unveiled plans for a $800 million data center in Central Texas that would span nearly 400 acres and 900,000 square feet.

Meta needs to act decisively if it’s going to keep up with the other tech titans. Microsoft plans to spend $80 billion this year on data center projects, more than half of which is earmarked for developments in the United States.

Amazon, meanwhile, spent more than $2 billion in industrial acquisitions last year — including data centers — more than doubling the $920 million spent in the sector by the company the prior year.

This week, Donald Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle called Stargate, which is to invest at least $100 billion in data centers.

— Holden Walter-Warner