Mark Zuckerberg has a simple answer to one of the biggest questions in AI: Who should get superintelligence? Everyone.
In a 6,500-word essay published Monday, the Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) CEO argued against concentrating increasingly powerful AI in the hands of a few companies, governments or institutions. Instead, he wants Meta to make advanced AI broadly available, including free or affordable versions for billions of people.
The vision comes with an enormous infrastructure bill.
Meta — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — expects to spend $130 billion to $145 billion on capital expenditures in 2026. That includes investments in data centers and other infrastructure. The company spent $31.1 billion on capital expenditures in the second quarter alone.
Not all of that spending is specifically for Zuckerberg’s vision of personal superintelligence. But the scale of the investment shows how seriously Meta is preparing for an AI future in which increasingly powerful models become part of everyday life.
Zuckerberg Wants AI in Everyone’s Hands
Zuckerberg’s argument is broader than simply making another chatbot available. His central concern is that if increasingly powerful AI is controlled by only a small number of institutions, it could concentrate too much power in too few hands.
Meta’s strategy is to distribute that technology through products used by billions of people.
That approach became more tangible Monday when Meta released Muse Glimmer, a smaller AI model designed to run on personal computers using a single graphics card. Zuckerberg also said a more advanced Muse Spark 1.2 model is coming soon.
Getting there will not be cheap.
The $145 Billion Question
Meta’s second-quarter revenue rose 28% to $60.8 billion, but operating expenses jumped 55%. Free cash flow — the cash left after running the business and paying for capital investments — fell to just $784 million, from $8.55 billion a year earlier. That doesn’t mean Meta is suddenly struggling financially. It ended June with $90.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. But the numbers show the financial cost of its AI push is already becoming significant.
Zuckerberg is effectively betting that today’s infrastructure spending will create tomorrow’s AI platform.
And Meta has an advantage that many AI rivals lack: distribution. Its Family of Apps reached 3.6 billion daily active people in June, giving Meta an enormous audience to which it can introduce AI products. That makes Zuckerberg’s argument about access more than a philosophical statement. It is also a business strategy.
Meta wants to build the models, spend heavily on the infrastructure behind them and put those models in front of billions of people. For META investors, the question is no longer whether Zuckerberg is willing to spend heavily on AI. He clearly is.
The bigger question is whether making superintelligence affordable can generate enough value to justify the extraordinary cost of building it.
But while Zuckerberg sees personal AI as a tool to boost careers, businesses, education and creative work, Meta’s own upheaval highlights the darker side of the AI boom: tech companies are increasingly cutting jobs as AI takes on work once done by employees.
In May, Meta laid off more than 8,000 workers, or about 10% of its workforce, underscoring how AI is reshaping the jobs it was supposed to help.
Image via Shutterstock
