Meta Platforms released the weights for its 30-billion-parameter Muse Glimmer model on August 10 but had not, as of August 25, published the weights for its flagship Muse Spark 1.2. The selective openness highlights a spending plan that now targets $130 billion to $145 billion in capital outlays for 2026, revised upward from an earlier $115 billion to $135 billion range, on infrastructure the company does not plan to rent out.

The revenue engine is advertising not APIs

Unlike OpenAI or Anthropic, Meta does not need to sell model access or enterprise subscriptions to justify the outlay. The second quarter showed the internal payoff: AI-driven improvements lifted Facebook ad clicks 8.3 percent and conversions 15.7 percent year over year, while an Instagram pilot added a 1 percent bump in users completing targeted in-app actions. Revenue climbed 28 percent to $60.8 billion, yet operating cash flow of $31.9 billion barely covered the $31.1 billion in quarterly capex, leaving free cash flow at just $784 million.

Commitments stretch past the current guidance

The 2026 figure is only the visible portion. Noncancelable contracts for 2027 total $81.6 billion, largely tied to cloud capacity, data centers, and Reality Labs hardware. Another $68 billion in data center leases kick in during 2027 and 2028. Depreciation on property and equipment already jumped 40 percent to $6 billion in the quarter, and $80.3 billion sitting in construction-in-progress, mostly servers and network gear, will keep that line climbing as assets come online.

Valuation hinges on incremental gains at scale

Shares trade around 16.8 times expected 2027 earnings of $33.90 per share, a multiple that looks reasonable only if the existing 3.6 billion daily users keep yielding marginal engagement and conversion improvements. The catch is geographic: much of the new ad inventory comes from lower-monetization regions such as Asia-Pacific, making local-language business agents on WhatsApp and Messenger the next lever rather than a nice-to-have.

What to watch next

The gap between Muse Glimmer and the withheld Muse Spark 1.2 weights will signal how much of the frontier Meta intends to keep proprietary. Meanwhile, depreciation trajectory and the pace at which construction-in-progress converts to productive assets will determine whether operating margins absorb the spend or crack under it.