News
Feb 19, 2026
News
Enterprise
Artificial Intelligence
Americas
NewDecoded
3 min read
Image by Mariia Shalabaieva
Meta is establishing a new top-level organization called Meta Compute to construct the massive physical infrastructure required for advanced artificial intelligence. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the initiative on Threads, stating that the company plans to build tens of gigawatts of capacity this decade and hundreds of gigawatts over the long term. This strategic shift treats energy and computing power as fundamental competitive advantages rather than mere support functions.
The effort is led by a high-level team reporting directly to Zuckerberg. Santosh Janardhan will oversee engineering and the global technical stack. Daniel Gross joins to lead long-range capacity strategy and supply chain planning. Additionally, Dina Powell McCormick will manage sovereign partnerships and the massive capital requirements needed for such nation-scale energy projects.
The scale of the project is unprecedented in the modern tech industry. For context, typical large data center campuses consume between 0.1 and 0.5 gigawatts today. Meta’s long-term goal of hundreds of gigawatts implies a plan to control energy resources equivalent to a significant portion of the entire United States power grid.
To fuel this growth, Meta is pivoting toward nuclear energy solutions for reliable baseload power. The company has already secured agreements for approximately 6.6 gigawatts of carbon-free power through partnerships with providers such as Vistra and TerraPower. This strategy directly addresses the power availability constraints that currently cap the potential of AI scaling.
This infrastructure is designed to support the inference of personal superintelligence for billions of users. By owning the entire stack from energy sources to custom silicon and AI models, Meta aims to drop the cost of running AI significantly. This vertical integration provides a distinct edge over competitors who rely heavily on third-party cloud partnerships.
Financially, the commitment represents a historic investment in American industrial capacity. Meta has projected 72 billion dollars in capital expenditure for 2025 alone, with plans to invest up to 600 billion dollars in infrastructure by 2028. This move aligns the company with domestic industrial policy to help navigate complex regulatory and geopolitical environments.
The New Industrial Age of Intelligence
This launch marks the transition of AI development from a software and chip competition into a heavy industrial utility race. By moving toward sovereign wealth funding and direct nuclear energy procurement, Meta is essentially building a private power grid to bypass the limitations of existing public infrastructure. This shift forces the entire tech industry to reconsider its capital intensity, as the barrier to entry for top-tier AI is no longer just algorithms, but the physical ability to harness energy at a continental scale.