At a Glance
- Meta will build “tens of gigawatts this decade” and “hundreds of gigawatts or more over time” to feed its AI infrastructure.
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg has formed Meta Compute, a new initiative led by three senior executives.
- America’s electrical consumption for AI could jump from 5 GW to 50 GW within ten years.
- Why it matters: The scale of Meta’s energy grab could reshape national power markets and set the pace for Big Tech’s AI arms race.
Meta is turning last year’s capital-expenditure talk into hard infrastructure. CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday unveiled Meta Compute, a company-wide push to lock down the electricity, data centers, and technical talent needed to run next-generation AI models.
The announcement follows CFO Susan Li‘s 2023 earnings-call pledge that “developing leading AI infrastructure will be a core advantage in developing the best AI models and product experiences.”
Three Leaders, One Power Play
Zuckerberg has handed day-to-day authority to:
- Santosh Janardhan – head of global infrastructure since 2009, now in charge of “technical architecture, software stack, silicon program, developer productivity, and building and operating our global datacenter fleet and network.”
- Daniel Gross – Safe Superintelligence co-founder who joined Meta in 2023, tasked with “long-term capacity strategy, supplier partnerships, industry analysis, planning, and business modeling.”
- Dina Powell McCormick – former government official and Meta’s new president and vice chairman, responsible for “working with governments to help build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta’s infrastructure.”
Gigawatt Math
A single gigawatt equals one billion watts-enough to power roughly 750,000 homes. Zuckerberg’s targets dwarf most national grids:
| Time Frame | Planned Capacity |
|---|---|
| This decade | Tens of gigawatts |
| Long term | Hundreds of gigawatts or more |
One industry estimate predicts U.S. AI power demand will climb from 5 GW to 50 GW within ten years; Meta wants to own a sizeable slice of that pie.
Peer Pressure
Meta is not alone in its build-out binge. Microsoft has stitched together a web of AI infrastructure partnerships, and Alphabet in December bought data-center operator Intersect. Capex forecasts released last year showed Meta’s rivals mapping similar spending curves.
News Of Philadelphia asked Meta for additional details on Meta Compute; the company did not immediately respond.
Key Takeaways
- Meta’s infrastructure roadmap now has names, numbers, and executives attached.
- Electricity demand from AI could multiply tenfold within a decade.
- Governments, utilities, and rival cloud giants must decide whether to collaborate-or compete-with Zuckerberg’s power play.
