Meta Faces Risks Due to Rising AI Costs

Meta Platforms may face pressure on free cash flow due to increased capital expenditures on infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Investors are awaiting the company's quarterly report next week to assess whether capital expenditures have exceeded operating cash flow. Meta's capital expenditures for 2026 could reach $145 billion, making the company one of the largest players in the AI infrastructure race. Rising infrastructure costs may outpace revenues from the advertising business. Unlike Google and Amazon, Meta does not have a large cloud business to offset some of these expenses. The company is actively investing in data centers, servers, and its own AI products, such as advertising tools and the Llama language model; however, monetization of these areas is still in its early stages. Following Alphabet's report, which showed a negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion in the second quarter of 2026, investors began to evaluate the possibility of a similar situation with Meta. If the company's operating cash flow falls below infrastructure costs, it could negatively impact its stock. The trend of increasing capital expenditures is observed among major tech corporations transitioning to a model where data centers and servers become key to competition in the AI sector.