Meta’s profit falls 14% as AI spending continues

4 min readNew DelhiJul 30, 2026 09:31 AM IST Products on display at the Meta lab pop-up on 5th Avenue in Manhattan on Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (Lexi Parra/The New York Times) Meta has bet big on artificial intelligence. On Wednesday, it said that bet would not let up. The Silicon Valley company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, increased the lower end of its capital expenditure forecast for the year to $130 billion, up from its $125 billion projection in April. Much of that investment will go to building data centers, the computing facilities that power AI.Meta also said its costs and expenses rose faster than its revenue growth for the second quarter. Revenue was $60.8 billion, up 28% from a year earlier, while costs jumped 55% to $42 billion. Profit was $18.3 billion, down 1