MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Meta plans to raise as much as $95 billion in new equity to fund its push into AI infrastructure and superintelligence, the company said on Monday, October 26. The plan begins with $35 billion in underwritten public offerings. A further $60 billion would follow through an at-the-market program. The stock slipped 1.6% in morning trading. Chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom expressed interest in buying up to $5 billion of the shares.
Meta said the at-the-market program has not yet been set up and its timing and terms are not final. Reports said it could start in the first quarter of 2027. The company is also creating a new Class C stock, which lets it issue shares without diluting Mark Zuckerberg’s control. Funding will come from a mix of operating cash flow, investment-grade debt, partnerships and equity capital, Meta said.
The money will support what Meta called emerging AI opportunities, including its family of apps, the Muse AI agent and its data center business. Meta paused Muse chat links last week after a security firm found them in public DNS records. The company is building four superclusters with more than 1 gigawatt of capacity each. It expects to nearly double total infrastructure capacity in 2026 from a year earlier.
Cash flow turns negative as capex climbs
Third-quarter revenue rose 26% from a year earlier to $64.60 billion, beating the $63.37 billion analysts expected. The results, released last week, still disappointed investors. Free cash flow came in at negative $2.12 billion, with quarterly capital expenditures of $34.91 billion. Meta also raised its full-year capex forecast to between $135 billion and $145 billion, lifting the low end from $130 billion. Its shares fell on Thursday.
Hyperscalers are pouring record sums into AI infrastructure and increasingly turning to debt markets. Goldman Sachs estimates AI-related capital spending could reach about $7.6 trillion between 2026 and 2031 across compute, data centers and power. Meta is among the companies relying more on outside financing to meet those costs. The new offering adds equity to that mix. Existing shareholders face dilution from the new stock, although the Class C structure protects Zuckerberg’s voting control.
AI funding race draws record sums
Ben Wood of CCS Insight told CNBC the raise reflects the huge investment needed to stay in the AI arms race. Wood said Meta’s move comes as Google, SpaceX and Anthropic also seek funding from markets. Alphabet said in June it would look to raise $85 billion. SpaceX has completed a $40 billion debt financing to purchase graphics processing units for AI. Investors are weighing how much capital the race will ultimately require.
Anthropic filed for an initial public offering on Monday. Lenders and Blackstone also committed $63 billion to fund Broadcom AI chips for Anthropic that day. CNBC reported on Friday that TikTok U.S. is looking to secure multiple gigawatts of computing capacity in the coming years. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, which supply AI hardware, could become Meta shareholders through the deal. The offering adds to a growing wave of fundraising tied to AI computing power.