Meta lifts record equity fundraising to $97.5 billion to pay for AI data centres

Meta Platforms has raised the size of its equity fundraising plan to $97.5 billion, the largest in the company's history, as it looks for new ways to pay for a vast expansion of data centres and artificial intelligence computing capacity, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

How the money is being raised

The plan has three parts. Meta increased its offering of Class A common shares to $25 billion, priced at $625 a share, and is selling $12.5 billion of mandatory convertible preferred shares. A further programme of up to $60 billion, to be sold gradually through the market, is tied to a new class of non-voting Class C shares that Meta plans to introduce in early 2027.

Demand for the common stock portion was strong, with the offering reportedly oversubscribed around five times, which prompted the increase. Nvidia said it would invest $3 billion in the offering, and other chipmakers including AMD have also signalled interest as their AI partnerships with Meta deepen.

Why Meta needs the cash

Meta has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to future spending, mostly on data centres, AI infrastructure and cloud computing. It has projected capital expenditure of $135 billion to $145 billion for 2026, roughly double its 2025 level. Reuters reported that the company posted negative free cash flow in the third quarter, its first in more than a decade, even as quarterly revenue rose 26 per cent.

The raise is larger than the equity offerings of about $84.75 billion announced by Alphabet earlier this year, underlining how the AI race is forcing even the most profitable technology companies to tap investors for funds. Meta's shares fell between 1 and 2 per cent on Tuesday as investors weighed the scale of the spending.

Why it matters for India

India is one of Meta's largest markets by users of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, and global spending on AI infrastructure is shaping demand for data centres, power and engineering talent in the country. The scale of such investments also feeds into the debate on whether the AI boom will deliver returns large enough to justify the capital being poured into it.