The social media giant spent $17 billion on capital expenditures during the quarter, mostly on AI infrastructure and data centers and it expects to continue to spend heavily through 2026. Still, Meta’s shares soared 11.5% in after-hours trading after delivering blockbuster second quarter financial results. Revenue cruised 22% higher to $47.5 billion, and its core advertising business generated $46.6 billion in ad revenue across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Daily active users grew to 3.5 billion people and profit margins improved, with net income rising 36% to $18.3 billion compared to last year. 

“The intersection of technology and culture is where Meta focuses,” said Zuckerberg in an Instagram reel defining Meta’s aims for superintelligence. The new lab will focus on developing the next generation of Meta’s models, he said. 

Zuckerberg said the company is building an “elite, talent-dense team,” led by one of the world’s youngest billionaires, Alexandr Wang. 

“I spent a lot of time building this team this quarter,” said Zuckerberg. “The reason so many people are excited to join is because Meta has all of the ingredients required to build leading models and deliver them to billions of people.”

The new superintelligence team will have access to “unparalleled compute” as Meta builds out new gigawatt+ clusters. 

“We’re making all these investments because we have conviction that superintelligence is going to improve every aspect of what we do,” Zuckerberg said.