Meta and AMD are vying to meet the demand for AI

Tech giants are pouring unprecedented resources into artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, with Meta planning to spend up to $40 billion in 2024 and AMD riding the wave with $6.8 billion in revenue. The industry-wide investment push comes as companies struggle to meet rising demand, with Meta's AI capabilities increasing engagement by 6% to 8% across all platforms.

Meta's AI ambitions come with a high price

Meta's strong third-quarter performance with record revenue of $40.6 billion sets the stage for ambitious AI expansion plans that require massive infrastructure investments. CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that advancing the company's AI initiatives will require significant investments, with the 2024 budget expected to reach $38 billion to $40 billion.

The tech giant's AI efforts are already showing promising results. Meta AI has attracted over 500 million monthly active users, while AI-driven improvements to content recommendations have significantly increased user engagement. Due to improved AI capabilities, Facebook and Instagram saw an 8% and 6% increase in time spent, respectively, this year.

The company's generative AI tools are popular with advertisers. Over a million companies used it to create more than 15 million ads last month. These AI-powered ads deliver measurable results, with businesses seeing a 7% increase in conversions.

Meta's commitment to AI development also extends to Llama language models, with Llama 3 marking an industry turning point and Llama 4 already in development. This AI-focused future comes at a price, however, as the company prepares for what Zuckerberg calls serious infrastructure investments in 2024 and beyond.

AI drives record quarter for AMD

AMD's bet on AI is paying off: The chipmaker reported record-breaking revenue of $6.8 billion for the third quarter of 2024, largely due to increasing demand for AI-focused products. The company's data center segment was the top performer, with revenue rising 122% year over year to $3.5 billion, driven primarily by strong sales of AMD Instinct GPUs and EPYC processors.

“We see significant growth opportunities in our data center, customer and embedded businesses, driven by the insatiable demand for more computing power,” said AMD Chairman and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. This appetite for AI computing power has helped the company maintain its momentum in the highly competitive chip market, where it battles against industry giants like Nvidia and Intel.

AMD's outlook remains optimistic, with revenue expected to reach about $7.5 billion in the fourth quarter – representing year-over-year growth of 22%. The company's focus on high-performance computing and AI-optimized chips appears to be resonating with large tech companies and data centers looking to quickly expand their AI infrastructure.