Mark Zuckerberg is sticking to massive AI investments, even as DeepSeek stirs hype over cheaper alternatives.

On January 24, the Meta CEO announced plans to increase its AI GPU fleet to 1.3 million by the end of 2025, with a budget of $60-80 billion for AI infrastructure. However, the launch of DeepSeek, which claims high efficiency without costly hardware, has raised concerns about whether such massive spending is necessary.

Zuckerberg dismissed those concerns, saying that AI infrastructure is a long-term competitive edge for Meta.

“Right now, I’d bet that building this infrastructure will be a major advantage—both in service quality and scaling to the user base we want,” he said.

Meta is also working on Llama 4, aiming to push agentic and multimodal capabilities even further.

“With Llama 3, our goal was to make open-source models competitive with closed ones. With Llama 4, we aim to lead,” Zuckerberg emphasized.

The company has already completed training a smaller version of Llama 4 and is now developing a more powerful model.

Record Losses in the Metaverse Division

Meanwhile, Meta Reality Labs, the company’s metaverse division, continues to burn cash. Losses hit a record $4.97 billion in Q4 2024.

Since 2020, the division has racked up more than $60 billion in total losses. Despite this, Zuckerberg has maintained that AI is crucial to the future of the metaverse.

In 2021, the company rebranded from Facebook to Meta, shifting its focus towards metaverse development.

Financial Performance

Despite heavy spending, Meta crushed analysts’ expectations:

• Earnings per share: $8.02 (vs. $6.77 expected).

• Revenue: $48.39 billion (vs. $47.04 billion expected).

The company’s revenue jumped 21% YoY, while net income surged 49%—rising from $14 billion to $20.8 billion.

Meanwhile, Meta AI’s chatbot has reached 700 million monthly active users, with projections to hit 1 billion in 2025.

Zuckerberg also expressed optimism about the new U.S. administration.

“We now have a government that supports leading American tech companies and prioritizes our global competitiveness,” he stated.

Context

In November 2024, Meta provided its AI technology to U.S. government agencies and defense contractors.

The rise of DeepSeek has sparked debates about the future cost-efficiency of AI infrastructure, but Zuckerberg remains firm that big AI investments in chips will remain essential.