Zuckerberg claims ‘superintelligence is now in sight' as Meta lavishes billions on AI
In a new memo posted on Wednesday ahead of the company's quarterly earnings report, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg describes his ambitions for developing what he calls 'superintelligence'.
'Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves,' Zuckerberg wrote. 'The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable. Developing superintelligence is now in sight.'
Though he did not provide any details of what would qualify as 'superintelligence' versus standard artificial intelligence, he did say that it would pose 'novel safety concerns'.
'We'll need to be rigorous about mitigating these risks and careful about what we choose to open source,' he wrote.
Zuckerberg wrote that the company differs from other AI firms in that Meta aims to bring 'personal superintelligence to everyone'. Other companies are focused on primarily using 'superintelligence' for productivity and to automate 'all valuable work', he wrote.
'The rest of this decade seems likely to be the decisive period for determining the path this technology will take, and whether superintelligence will be a tool for personal empowerment or a force focused on replacing large swaths of society,' he wrote.
Investors are looking for signs that the parent company of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook is spending its billions efficiently. The social media company reports its second quarter earnings Wednesday after the close of the New York stock exchange, and analysts expect a lot of attention on whether the revenue the company is bringing in will help offset the hundreds of billions the firm is spending on recruiting and infrastructure, collectively known as capital expenditure.
Wall Street expects Meta to report $5.92 in earnings per share on $44.8bn in revenue. Meta has exceeded Wall Street's financial expectations for multiple quarters in a row despite enormous spending on AI. Wednesday's results will be important to watch because 'the cashflow from that revenue is a huge source of capital for all the investments the company is making', according to David Meier, senior analyst at the Motley Fool.
'Meta can't invest enough capital into its artificial intelligence infrastructure,' Meier wrote.
Zuckerberg provided few tangible updates in the memo, but one thing is clear: Getting to this so-called higher level of intelligence will require a great deal of capital. The firm previously projected its total expenses for 2025 would come in between $113bn and $118bn. Of that, Meta said it expected its capital expenditures to amount to somewhere in the range of $64bn and $72bn – up from a previous prediction of $60bn to $65bn.
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The company has been building out its new superintelligence labs team with talent from competing AI firms. Meta first invested $14.3bn into Scale AI in exchange for a 49% stake in the company, and brought the startup's CEO Alexandr Wang on as chief AI officer. Since then, several reports indicate Meta is attracting engineers and other employees away from firms like Apple, Github and several startups with massive compensation packages – including at least one that came in over $200m , according to Bloomberg.
'To win the superintelligence race requires the best of the best talent and Meta has been on a roll when it comes to recruiting top AI talent,' said Forrester research director Mike Proulx. 'Money talks and Meta has plenty of it – reaching into the company's deep pockets to lure luminaries from its competition with lavish compensation packages, while spending hundreds of billions on data centers to power and scale its AI initiatives.'
Analysts will be scrutinizing how the company's primary revenue source – advertising – is faring. In addition to looking at overall revenue brought in from advertising – which was $38.3bn for the same quarter in 2024 – analysts will probably be interested in updates on newer advertising efforts such as on WhatsApp.
'For more than a decade, Meta resisted trying to monetize the user base on the communications app,' Motley Fool's Meier wrote. 'But that changed in June when the company announced it would be selling ads, and we are curious to hear about the progress Meta is making.'
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