Meta has shoveled billions of dollars into its artificial intelligence efforts in recent years. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, recently opened his checkbook even further for a hiring spree to add top researchers to build a “superintelligent” A.I.
On Wednesday, the Silicon Valley company indicated that its spending will continue rising. The company raised part of its capital expenditure forecast for the year, and said the rate of increase in its spending would jump next year, driven by its construction of data centers, which are the giant computing facilities underlying its A.I. push.
“I’m excited to build personal superintelligence for everyone in the world,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a statement.
Meta said it would continue spending as it posted revenue of $47.5 billion for the second quarter, up 22 percent from a year earlier and above Wall Street estimates of $44.8 billion, according to data compiled by FactSet. Profit was $18.3 billion, up 36 percent from a year earlier and surpassing estimates of $15.1 billion.
The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said its A.I. investments improve its advertising business, which accounts for nearly all of its revenue.
Meta said it expected revenue of $47.5 billion to $50.5 billion for the current quarter, above Wall Street expectations of $46.2 billion. Its shares rose more than 9 percent in after-hours trading.
Meta’s family of apps, which includes Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, had 3.48 billion daily users in June, up 6 percent from a year ago.
Even as Meta spends big, Mr. Zuckerberg faces questions about whether the outlays will pay off. He recently offered nine-figure pay packages to hire A.I. researchers, and in June invested $14.3 billion in the start-up Scale AI. Alexandr Wang, Scale AI’s chief executive, joined Meta as its new chief A.I. officer.
Investors, who reacted skeptically to Meta’s focus in 2021 on the so-called world of the metaverse, have been more patient with Mr. Zuckerberg’s investment in A.I. Part of the reason is that A.I. has become the focus of the entire tech industry, said Uday Cheruvu, a portfolio manager for Harding Loevner, an investment firm.
But there is pressure for Meta’s new A.I. team to deliver results soon, especially when it comes to improving the company’s core advertising business, said Andrew Rocco, a stock analyst at Zacks.
“I think the long-term plan is for Meta to branch out beyond the ads” when it comes to A.I., Mr. Rocco said, including developing chatbots and personal assistants that mimic human interactions. But “what’s going to move Meta’s stock price is how A.I. is impacting their core business already,” he added.
Eli Tan covers the technology industry for The Times from San Francisco.
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