- Mark Zuckerberg intends to maintain high spending on artificial intelligence despite the buzz around DeepSeek’s affordability.
- Meta records unprecedented losses in its metaverse division.
- Overall, the company released a favourable financial report.
Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has pledged to sustain high expenditure on artificial intelligence, despite the panic caused by the AI model DeepSeek. The commitment involves “hundreds of billions” in the long term, according to TechCrunch.
On January 24, Zuckerberg stated that by the end of 2025, Meta will have 1.3 million graphics processors for artificial intelligence. The company plans to invest $60-80 billion in AI. However, the recent emergence of the DeepSeek AI model has raised questions about the viability of such large investments in costly equipment.
The Meta CEO emphasized that spending on AI infrastructure remains a strategic advantage for the company. It is premature to discuss a decline in chip demand due to DeepSeek, he believes. They remain crucial for outputs.
“At this point, I am willing to bet that the ability to create such infrastructure will become a significant advantage both for service quality and for the ability to serve users at the scale we desire,” Zuckerberg stressed.
He added that the corporation’s next neural network, Llama 4, will be among the most competitive globally, offering agent and multimodal capabilities.
“Our goal with Llama 3 was to make open source competitive with closed models. For Llama 4, it is to become a leader,” he concluded.
The company has completed training a smaller version of Llama 4 and is now working on a larger model.
Record Metaverse Losses
Meanwhile, Meta’s virtual and augmented reality division, Reality Labs, continues to incur losses. In the fourth quarter, expenses reached a record $4.97 billion.
Since 2020, the division’s operating losses have exceeded $60 billion. Previously, Zuckerberg noted that artificial intelligence plays a key role in the strategy of creating the metaverse.
In October 2021, Facebook underwent a major rebranding, renaming itself Meta and announcing a shift in focus from social networks to developing the metaverse with VR and AR headsets.
Overall Report
Overall, Meta’s financial report exceeded expectations:
- Earnings per share were $8.02 compared to the expected $6.77;
- Revenue reached $48.39 billion versus the anticipated $47.04 billion.
Sales in the fourth quarter grew by 21% year-on-year, while net profit rose by 49% to $20.8 billion compared to $14 billion the previous year.
The number of monthly active users of the Meta AI chatbot exceeded 700 million. Zuckerberg predicts this figure will reach 1 billion by 2025. He also anticipates a more favourable attitude towards the company from the government.
“We now have a U.S. administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes the victory of American technologies, and will defend our values and interests abroad. I am optimistic about the progress and innovation this can unlock,” he noted.
Back in November, Meta provided its AI technologies to U.S. government agencies and defense contractors.