Meta Flexes Financial Muscle in Costly AI Showdown With Microsoft and Google

Meta Platforms shareholders have had a singular concern lately: how the company can go toe-to-toe with Google and Microsoft (and Microsoft partner OpenAI) in developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence while expanding data centers and filling them with costly AI chips to enable future breakthroughs that result in profits.

On Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg helped investors breathe a little easier by showing he can afford to stay in the AI race, at least for now. Not only did Meta’s revenue grow 22% in the second quarter to $39 billion—which was at the high end of earlier projections—the company said revenue growth would rise up to 20% in the current quarter.