Prime Highlight:
- Meta has launched Meta Compute, a major initiative to expand its AI infrastructure and strengthen its competitive advantage.
- The company plans to build power capacity in the tens of gigawatts over the next decade to support AI systems.
Key Facts:
- Industry estimates suggest US AI-driven power demand could rise from 5 gigawatts today to 50 gigawatts within the next decade.
- Meta appointed Santosh Janardhan, Daniel Gross, and Dina Powell McCormick to lead technical, planning, and government engagement aspects of the initiative.
Background:
Meta has launched a new initiative called Meta Compute to sharply expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company is increasing investment to support its growing AI business.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced the move in a post on Threads, saying Meta plans to build power capacity in the tens of gigawatts over the next decade, with even larger targets over time. He said the way Meta designs and invests in this infrastructure will become a key strategic advantage for the company.
A gigawatt equals one billion watts of electricity, underlining the scale of energy that modern AI systems require. Industry estimates suggest that AI-driven power demand in the US could jump from about five gigawatts today to 50 gigawatts within the next decade.
Meta had earlier signalled this push during an earnings call last year, when Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said that strong AI infrastructure would be critical to creating leading models and products.
Zuckerberg named three executives who will lead the new effort. Santosh Janardhan, head of global infrastructure and a Meta veteran since 2009, will oversee the technical side of the programme. His role will include architecture design, software systems, silicon development, and the building and operation of Meta’s global data centre network.
Daniel Gross, who joined Meta last year and co-founded Safe Superintelligence with former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, will head a new team responsible for long-term capacity planning, supplier partnerships, and business modelling.
Dina Powell McCormick, Meta’s president and vice chairman, will work with governments to help build, fund, and deploy the company’s infrastructure projects.
The move places Meta firmly in the race to develop AI-ready cloud environments. Microsoft has partnered with multiple infrastructure providers, while Google’s parent Alphabet acquired data centre company Intersect in December, highlighting the growing battle to secure power and computing resources for the AI era.
