Meta Compute Initiative marks a decisive shift in Meta’s long-term artificial intelligence strategy, as the company moves to centralize and scale the infrastructure required to support frontier AI and future superintelligence. Announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the initiative will oversee Meta’s global data center footprint, supplier partnerships, and energy planning as AI workloads grow exponentially.
The new effort will be co-led by Santosh Janardhan, Meta’s head of global infrastructure, and Daniel Gross. Janardhan will continue managing Meta’s technical foundations and worldwide data center operations.
Gross, meanwhile, will head a newly formed group focused on strategic capacity planning and business partnerships. Together, they will coordinate closely with Dina Powell McCormick, who recently joined Meta as president and vice chairman.
Through the Meta Compute Initiative, the company aims to align infrastructure decisions more tightly with its AI ambitions. Zuckerberg has made clear that Meta is accelerating investment in what he calls frontier AI and personal superintelligence, a theoretical stage where machines surpass human-level reasoning. Supporting that vision requires not just better models, but unprecedented levels of computing power.
According to Zuckerberg, Meta plans to build data centers capable of delivering tens of gigawatts of capacity this decade, with ambitions extending to hundreds of gigawatts over time.
At that scale, individual facilities could consume as much electricity as small cities or even entire countries. This places Meta among a growing group of technology giants reshaping global energy demand through AI-driven expansion.
The scale of the Meta Compute Initiative also raises important questions about resource use. Large data centers require significant amounts of electricity and water, and public concern around environmental impact is rising. Meta’s announcement comes as governments and communities increasingly scrutinize how AI infrastructure affects local ecosystems and utilities.
Meta’s aggressive infrastructure push follows challenges on the AI product side. The company has struggled to keep pace in Silicon Valley’s AI race after its Llama 4 model received a lukewarm response. Despite that setback, Meta committed up to $72 billion in capital spending in 2025, signaling confidence that infrastructure investment is essential to staying competitive in the long term.
Energy security is a central pillar of the Meta Compute Initiative. As AI and data centers drive U.S. power demand upward for the first time in two decades, Big Tech firms are racing to lock in long-term electricity supplies. Meta has already signed 20-year agreements to purchase power from three Vistra nuclear plants located in the U.S. heartland.
In addition, Meta is partnering with companies developing small modular nuclear reactors, which promise more flexible and scalable clean energy generation. These moves reflect a broader industry trend: AI leaders are no longer just technology buyers, but active participants in shaping future energy infrastructure to meet their needs.
Ultimately, the Meta Compute Initiative represents more than an internal reorganization. It is a statement of intent. Meta is betting that control over computing capacity, energy supply, and strategic partnerships will be as critical as algorithmic breakthroughs. Whether this approach restores its momentum in AI remains to be seen, but the scale of ambition is unmistakable.
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