Meta Eyes $29 Billion Private Capital Raise to Fuel AI Infrastructure Push

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is in advanced talks with major private capital firms to raise up to $29 billion as it accelerates its investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

According to a Financial Times report, the social media giant is negotiating with heavyweight investors including Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle, and Pimco. The financing plan, one of the largest of its kind, include $3 billion in equity and a staggering $26 billion in debt.

Meta is working with investment bank Morgan Stanley to structure the deal and is exploring ways to make the debt component more liquid and appealing to investors, many of whom have expressed concern over the unprecedented scale of the transaction.

If finalized, the move would mark a significant milestone in private capital financing for tech infrastructure, as Meta joins a growing list of AI players leaning on alternative finance to fund their ambitions without overburdening their balance sheets.

This funding push is part of Meta’s broader strategy to close the gap with AI leaders like OpenAI and Google. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made no secret of his commitment to artificial intelligence, ramping up capital expenditures and strategic hiring to reposition Meta as a major AI contender.

The company has already increased its projected capital spending for 2025 to between $64 billion and $72 billion significantly higher than in previous years with much of the investment earmarked for next-generation data centres and high-performance infrastructure needed for AI model training and deployment.

However, Meta’s journey into AI has not been without setbacks. Its latest large language model, Llama 4, failed to meet expectations, and development of its next-generation model, code-named “Behemoth,” has been delayed. In a bid to recover momentum, Meta has committed $15 billion to ScaleAI, a startup specializing in AI data labeling, and appointed its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead a newly formed “superintelligence” team focused on building artificial general intelligence (AGI).

The company is also aggressively courting top talent, reportedly offering sign-on bonuses as high as $100 million to poach engineers from rivals, including OpenAI.

AI development is extremely power-intensive, and Meta is moving quickly to secure the energy needed to sustain its future operations. It recently signed a landmark 20-year agreement to purchase energy from a nuclear power plant in Illinois—its first such deal. The company has also inked four additional clean energy agreements with developer Invenergy, signalling its long-term commitment to reliable and sustainable power sources.

Meta’s latest fundraising strategy highlights a growing trend among top-tier tech firms. Instead of relying solely on public markets or company reserves, tech giants are increasingly turning to private capital to bankroll large-scale projects while maintaining financial flexibility.

Earlier this year, Blue Owl Capital agreed to finance a $15 billion data centre joint venture for OpenAI in Texas. OpenAI itself is pursuing an even more ambitious $500 billion infrastructure initiative in partnership with SoftBank and Oracle.

As the race for AI dominance intensifies, Meta’s push to secure massive private funding underscores the scale of the stakes—and the increasing role of private capital in shaping the future of global technology.