The National Times - Meta plans to invest $60 bn or more in AI this year

"This will be a defining year for AI," Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page.

Zuckerberg expects Meta AI to be the top digital assistant, used by more than a billion people, and for the tech firm's Llama 4 to be at the forefront of AI models, according to the post.

Meta is creating an AI "engineer" to contribute computer coding to its research and development efforts, he explained.

Meta will construct a massive new datacenter to power its AI ambitions and is planning $60 billion to $65 billion in capital expenditures this year related to the technology, according to Zuckerberg.

"This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership," he said.

The post comes just days after US President Donald Trump announced a major investment to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence led by Japanese giant SoftBank and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

Trump said the venture, called Stargate, "will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States."

But in a post on his social media platform X, Trump ally and tech tycoon Elon Musk said the main investors "don't actually have the money."

The comment marked a rare instance of a split between the world's richest man and Trump, with Musk playing a key role in the newly installed administration after spending $270 million on the election campaign.

Microsoft president Brad Smith, meanwhile, has gone on record saying the company was on pace this fiscal year to invest about $80 billion to build out AI datacenters, train AI models and deploy cloud-based applications around the world.

"The United States is poised to stand at the forefront of this new technology wave, especially if it doubles down on its strengths and effectively partners internationally," Smith said in an online post.

A.M.Owen--TNT