meta

Meta spent a fortune on AI talent and data centers. Nine months later the result is: zero models

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Mark Zuckerberg wanted to be the Florentino Pérez of AI. last summer began to sign galacticos in this segment and getting talent by letting go stacks of millions of dollars. He more popularOf course, it was the AI wunderkind Alexandr Wangwho became leader of its “Superintelligence” division. The funny thing is that the months go by and go by and in Meta they don’t seem to have absolutely anything to show. And that is very worrying. Delays. Despite having invested billions of dollars in that restructuring of the company to bet (practically) everything on AI, three internal sources confirm that Meta finds it very difficult to meet the planned deadlines. The race for generative AI waits for no one, and at the company headquarters nerves are on edge because the roadmap is not being met. Avocado, where are you? The new foundational AI model that Meta has been working on for months has been internally named Avocado, but at the moment it is not measuring up, something that reminds us what happened to Llama 4. Internal tests reveal that although it manages to surpass the aforementioned Llama 4 and the old Gemini 2.5, it falls short of Gemini 3.0 (and of course, the recent Gemini 3.1). Patience. Coming out with a model that is clearly worse than its rivals does not make sense, so Meta has decided to wait and delay the launch of its model. Avocado is expected to hit the market in May at the earliest. And meanwhile, Gemini. The situation is so critical that according to these sources, the leaders of the AI ​​division are considering something unthinkable: paying a license to Google to be able to use Gemini in their own products, something that for example will Apple do Siri. That would be a clear sign that for now this own model is not capable enough to power the AI ​​functions of WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads. Money does not equal speed. The company has spent billions of dollars on AI researchers, and has committed to invest 600,000 million dollars in building AI data centers. In January, Meta projected a capex of $135 billion dedicated almost entirely to these projectsalmost double the $72 billion it spent last year. Despite these investments, the company is currently missing from an area in which its competitors continue to advance. Internal tension. According to these sources, Meta is becoming a tinderbox. The “TBD Lab” (for “To Be Determined”), the unit led by Wang, is working under maximum pressure on models named after fruits (Avocado, Mango, Watermelon), but has clashed with old-school Meta managers like Chris Cox and Andrew Bossworth. The company is trying to integrate those models with Meta’s advertising business, which is what supports everything, but Wang doesn’t seem to handle that part of the business very well. Goodbye to open models. Meta stood out at the beginning of this AI race as the company whose open models —not Open Source— were above the rest. Llama became the norm in this area, but in this new stage that philosophy seems to change and China is the one that now leads that segment. Thus, there is talk that both Zuckerberg and Wang lean toward closed models, such as those of OpenAI (GPT) or Google (Gemini). This allows you to have full control over the code, a competitive advantage that Meta does not seem to want to give up. Few fruits of this tree. Despite the extraordinary deployment of resources, the current balance is poor. Meta’s only tangible product of those investments is Vibes, an application similar to Sora that has not managed to fully gel. Meanwhile, those initial talent signings have turned into abandonments: the trickle of AI researchers who leave the company to join others (or found their own projects) is increasing. In Xataka | Meta has been buying chips from NVIDIA and AMD for years. Now it also makes its own so as not to fall short

Meta has been buying chips from NVIDIA and AMD for years. Now it also makes its own so as not to fall short

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Meta has not thrown in the towel with its MTIA (Meta Training and Inference Accelerators) chips. And although they didn’t have it all on their sidestopping depending on NVIDIA is a very juicy candy to jump to conclusions. For that very reason, They have presented a roadmap of four new chips with which the company intends to accelerate both its content recommendation systems and its generative AI capabilities. The first chip is now operational; The other three will arrive before the end of 2027. Below are all the details. Dependence. For years, Meta has relied almost entirely on NVIDIA and AMD to power its data centers. The development of our own silicon is complicated, but if it is achieved, it can be a very successful financial and strategic bet in these times. According to statements According to its vice president of engineering, Yee Jiun Song, designing its own chips allows the company to “eliminate what we don’t need,” which directly translates into cost reduction. Added to this is greater independence from possible price variations or supply restrictions. Which is exactly what you have announced. The four new chips are the MTIA 300, 400, 450 and 500. Each one has a different use: The MTIA 300 is already in production and is intended to train the algorithms that decide what content Facebook and Instagram users see. The MTIA 400 (known internally as Iris) has completed laboratory testing and is en route to data centers. Meta claims that it offers performance “competitive with leading commercial products,” according to its official statement. The MTIA 450 (Arke) will double the high-bandwidth memory compared to the 400 and is scheduled for early 2027. The MTIA 500 (Astrid), the most advanced, will arrive in mid-2027 and will incorporate, according to the company, improvements in low-precision data processing. The chips are manufactured by TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor producer, and have been developed in collaboration with Broadcom on the RISC-V open architecture. The rhythm is the most striking thing. What’s unusual is not just that Meta makes its own chips, but the speed at which it plans to do so. The usual cycle in the industry is one or two years between generations. Meta aims to release new versions every six months. “The pace of AI evolution is so fast that we always want to have the most advanced chip available when we need it,” counted Song. This accelerated cadence is possible, according to the company, thanks to a modular design that allows components to be reused between generations. ANDthis does not replace NVIDIA. It is important not to lose sight of the context. Meta remains one of the largest buyers of GPUs on the market. just a few weeks ago signed multi-million dollar agreements with NVIDIA and AMD to supply chips for the next few years, and has also reached an agreement to rent computing capacity on Google chips, as share Wired. MTIA chips are designed for specific and internal tasks (inference and recommendation systems), not for training large language models, so this strategy is complementary to your chip plans with NVIDIA or AMD. Nor should we forget that Meta recently had to abandon its most ambitious training chip, known internally as Olympus, after the project became complicated in the design phase, according to counted The Information. Susan Li, CFO of Meta, confirmed at a Morgan Stanley event that the company still has the goal of developing processors capable of training models, but without giving more details. And now what. The real test of this bet will come when the chips are deployed at scale. The challenge at the moment is to guarantee HBM memory supply before a RAM crisis that is affecting the entire technology sector. Song himself recognized to CNBC that the company “is absolutely concerned” about it, although it stated that they have assured supply for their current plans. In the long term, we will see if Meta can achieve something similar to what Google did with its TPUs. Cover image | Mariia Shalabaieva and Goal In Xataka | OpenClaw has caused a real media earthquake in China. The Government has prevented its officials from using it

Meta wants to warn us before it’s too late

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Social networks and messaging applications have become one of the favorite places for scammers to look for victims. It’s not a coincidence. They are platforms that we trust, where we interact with known people and where many decisions are made quickly, almost without thinking. In that scenario, a seemingly normal message, link, or request may be the first step in a scam. Goal has decided reinforce their alert systems with new tools that seek to detect suspicious signals and warn the user before it is too late. When someone tries to link your WhatsApp without you knowing. One of the novelties announced by Meta affects a fraud technique with which scammers try to link the victim’s WhatsApp account to another device. According to the company, they can try to convince the user to share their phone number and then the pairing code that appears on WhatsApp, or even ask them to scan a QR code under a false pretext. With the new alerts, the application will display warnings when it detects signs of suspicious behavior in these types of requests and will indicate where the request comes from so that the user can stop and reconsider the action before accepting it. Suspicious friend requests. Another of the functions that Meta is testing focuses on Facebook and such an everyday gesture as accepting a friend request. The platform tests warnings when it detects signs that may point to suspicious activity on an account. These signs include, for example, profiles with very few friends in common with the user or accounts that indicate a location in another country in their profile. The goal of these alerts is not to decide for the user, but rather to provide them with additional context before accepting the request, blocking it, or simply ignoring it. Messenger also receives news. Meta will expand its advanced scam detection system within this application to more countries this month. In this case, the focus is on the content of the conversation itself: when a chat with a new contact presents patterns associated with common fraud, the platform can show a warning to the user. The company mentions as an example messages that include suspicious job offers. At that point, the system can ask the user if they want to share recent messages for an AI-based tool to analyze and, if it detects signs of deception, offer additional information and suggest actions such as blocking or reporting the account. Beyond the visible notices. The firm led by Mark Zuckerberg explains that these in-app alerts are only part of its strategy against scams. In parallel, the company is strengthening its automatic detection systems with tools based on artificial intelligence capable of analyzing multiple signals at the same time, such as the text of a publication, the images used or the context in which the content appears. These systems seek to identify more complex patterns, such as accounts that impersonate celebrities, public figures or well-known brands, as well as links that redirect to pages designed to imitate legitimate sites. The figures. According to the company, during 2025 it removed more than 159 million scam-related ads worldwide for violating its policies. Of that total, around 92% were removed before any users reported them, suggesting that automatic detection systems were already acting before the fraud spread. Meta also points out that it took down 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram linked to scam centers and participated in an international operation that allowed the deactivation of more than 150,000 accounts associated with criminal networks in Southeast Asia. Images | Aman Pal | Goal In Xataka | China has turned OpenClaw into a viral phenomenon. And then it has prohibited its officials from using it

Meta just launched managed accounts for tweens

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WhatsApp is part of the daily lives of millions of people and, in many homes, also part of family communication. The company itself has been presenting it for some time as a common tool to talk to parents, notify that someone has arrived home or coordinate day-to-day activities. However, The platform establishes that its use is intended for people over 13 years of age.. Now Meta has decided introduce a new modality designed precisely for that terrain. The novelty. What was announced by Meta consists of introducing a new type of account within WhatsApp designed for preteens. Instead of creating a conventional profile, the minor uses an account managed by a parent or guardian that is linked to that of the adult from the moment of configuration. This allows the person responsible to monitor certain aspects of app usage, such as who can send messages, which group invitations can be accepted, or what privacy settings apply to the account. A more limited experience from the beginning. The managed account does not replicate all the usual WhatsApp functions, but rather reduces the service to the essentials. In this format, the preteen can use the application to send messages or make calls, but some of the tools that the platform has incorporated in recent years are excluded. Among them are channels, the possibility of sharing location or integration with Meta AI. The adult is in control. As we say, these managed accounts not only limit functions, they also change who makes certain decisions within the application. Once the minor’s account is linked to that of the father, mother or guardian, that person begins to manage various aspects of the use of WhatsApp. You can decide which contacts are authorized to communicate with the account, which group invitations can be accepted, and review message requests from unknown numbers. Additionally, privacy settings are protected by a parental PIN, meaning only the responsible adult can access and modify them. privacy. Although managed accounts introduce new controls for adults, WhatsApp ensures that the platform’s privacy system remains intact. Messages and calls remain protected by end-to-end encryption, so only people participating in the conversation can access their content. Step by step activation. To launch one of these managed accounts, the process begins on the child’s phone and also requires the parent or guardian’s device. WhatsApp also indicates that both devices must have the most recent version of the application and that the person managing the account must be over 18 years of age. The adult must download WhatsApp to the preteen’s phone and choose the option to create a managed account during the setup process. Download WhatsApp on the minor’s mobile Choose the option to create an account managed by a parent or guardian Register and verify the minor’s phone number Enter date of birth and confirm age Scan the QR code with the adult’s mobile phone to link the accounts Verify that the adult is of legal age Create a six-digit parental PIN to protect settings Finish setup on the child’s device The Spanish context adds another layer. In Spain, the debate about minors’ access to certain digital platforms has been ongoing for some time. At the beginning of 2026, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced the intention to ban access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age as part of a future regulation aimed at reinforcing digital protection at those ages. In this framework, platforms such as TikTok, Instagram or YouTube appear in the debate, while WhatsApp would be left out as it is considered a messaging service and not a social network. The new function seems designed to respond to a familiar use of messaging that the company itself assumes exists. Instead of ignoring it, Meta proposes a model in which this access occurs with more limits and with the direct supervision of a responsible adult. The result is a more limited version of WhatsApp, focused on basic communication and with additional controls over contacts, groups and privacy settings. In this way, the company tries to fit the use of the application by preteens within a more controlled environment. AvailabilityWhatsApp has only confirmed that these accounts will begin to roll out gradually in the coming months. That calendar leaves open an important question in regions like the European Union. In the European Region, On April 11, 2024, the company lowered the minimum age of use from 16 to 13 years to harmonize it with the rest of the world. However, the sources consulted do not yet detail how this new modality administered for minors below that threshold will be articulated in Europe or what scope it will actually have in those markets. Images | WhatsApp In Xataka | You’ve been ‘user84721’ for years. A study just showed that AI can know who you are in minutes

Meta just bought one designed for AI agents

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If we look back, the history of social networks is deeply linked to a very specific idea: connecting people. For years, platforms like Facebook were presented as places to keep in touch with friends, family or co-workers. That logic is still present, but the panorama is beginning to incorporate new actors. Meta has confirmed the acquisition of Moltbook, a platform created for artificial intelligence agents to interact with each other within a social network-like environment. The purchase. We are facing an agreement that does not go unnoticed. As part of the transaction, Moltbook creators Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr will join Meta Superintelligence Labs, the AI ​​unit led by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI. The company has not revealed the economic conditions of the operation, but a spokesperson told TechCrunch That the arrival of new talent opens new avenues for AI agents to work for people and companies, and their approach to connecting agents represents a novel step in a rapidly evolving space. A social network for agents. What differentiated Moltbook from other platforms was precisely its approach. Instead of focusing on human profiles, the site allowed AI agents to post messages and interact with each other within a forum-like format. Many of these agents used OpenClawa tool that connects models like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Grok with common messaging applications, including iMessage, Discord, Slack or WhatsApp. That combination turned Moltbook into a very striking experiment within the technological world, to the point of leaving the most specialized circle. An experiment with risks. The rapid popularity of Moltbook also exposed some major problems. Security researchers discovered that the platform had flaws that allowed human users to impersonate AI agents and publish messages as if they were autonomous systems, so that the environment designed for interaction between agents was not as solid as it seemed. Wiz also detected a vulnerability that exposed private messages, more than 6,000 email addresses, and more than one million credentials. open question. All this leaves an open question that still does not have a clear answer: how will Meta leverage this purchase in its artificial intelligence strategy. While there are clues, he has not explained how exactly he plans to use this project within his products or research. What we do know is that the operation comes at a time when large technology companies are competing for talent, tools and new ideas around autonomous agents. Images | Dima Solomin | Moltbook In Xataka | OpenAI is hitting the brakes with Stargate. The reason: Oracle builds yesterday’s data centers with tomorrow’s debt

Meta was building its AI chips to not be dependent on NVIDIA. Has ended up surrendering to the evidence

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Meta faces a crucial year. While its competitors were laying the foundations for AI, Meta was burning money in the metaverse. That, along with a totally different approach to what Google or OpenAI were doing with AI, caused Zuckerberg’s company to pass a few years in the gutter. After reorganizing the house and sign the AI ​​A-TeamMeta was preparing so much a great model as new own chips for training. The thing… hasn’t turned out as expected. MTIA. Within the different Meta teams focused on artificial intelligence, there is one known as MTIA. It comes from ‘Meta Training and Inference Accelerator’ and its objective was research and design own chips training for artificial intelligence. Having your own chip makes all the sense in the world, since it is designed based on the needs you have. They have another advantage: you are not dependent on anyone else. If NVIDIA doesn’t have enough chips, it doesn’t matter because you have yours and can continue scaling data center systems (and those of Meta are immense) to continue the training and inference tasks. Meta was not going to be in charge of manufacturing, something that the highly reputable TSMCbut the program got off to a bad start. This is very difficult. Reuters He already mentioned it last year. After testing his first in-house developed training chip, Meta realized that things were not going well. It was underperforming what they expected, and it was also worse than the competition. They did not throw away the chips, but instead referred them to other systems (such as those for recommending Facebook and Instagram based on algorithms). The problem is that the performance of the training chip, the one really important for the AI ​​career, was not enough. Strategy change. In The Information They echo a statement from Meta stating that the company remains committed “to investing in different silicon options to meet our needs, which includes the advancement of our MTIA division” and they urge us to remain attentive to news that will be shared throughout this year. However, in the same medium it is noted that Meta has greatly lowered its expectations with its chips. The idea was to have two chips. On the one hand, Iris, a single instruction training chip that is easy to design, but from which it is difficult to extract all the juice in these training tasks. artificial intelligence training. On the other hand, Olympus, a chip that would be completed towards the end of this year and that would be the central part of Meta’s training clusters. According to The Information, there were many internal doubts about the stability of Olympus, its intricate design and profitability, so they have left it in the drawer to focus on more “simpler” chips. The evidence. In the end, if you can’t beat your “enemy”, join him. The sources consulted by The Information point out that, in addition to other complications, the training software was not as stable as what alternatives such as those from NVIDIA offer. And all of this has ended up causing two multimillion-dollar agreements. In a period of just a few days, Meta signed agreements with both AMD and NVIDIA so that both can supply them with chips to train the AI. It’s a win-win for everyone because Meta receives what he needs, NVIDIA has another client on a list it dominates and AMD continues to make a name for itself in the sector thanks to agreements like this one or the one they signed last year with OpenAI. In addition, Meta secures several sources so as not to depend only on one company. In fact, it is also estimated that they have signed an agreement to rent TPU units from Google. The competition. Meta’s objective, therefore, is to diversify its portfolio of AI chip suppliers as much as possible while continuing to investigate its own chips of which, supposedly, we will learn details later. They may continue investigating Olympus or a variant or decide on another approach. Because what is clear is that they must develop something ‘own’. NVIDIA and AMD are suppliers, not competitors as such. The real competition is OpenAI, X and Google, and the last two have their factories at full capacity. Google with its TPUsprocessors designed exclusively for AI, and xAI with its own chips that they abandoned and picked up more recently. Objective: dethrone NVIDIA. And all this occurs in a world in which everyone is ‘friends’, but enemies at the same time. I already say that NVIDIA is a hardware supplier, but they practically control the AI ​​​​computing market and are moving both in hardware and software. It is logical that other companies are investigating alternatives to boost their own AI. Added to the list is an Amazon that is also manufacturing some chips called Trainium3 UltraServer and OpenAI with its agreement with Broadcom to manufacture chips. It is, as I say, a curious scenario: everyone needs each other, and there is the “circular economy” of AI, but at the same time everyone wants to be independent. The problem is that NVIDIA has a huge advantage in this and has both the technology and the contracts with memory companies… and the contacts with which it ends up manufacturing the best chips: TSMC. In Xataka | Trump ordered the Pentagon to stop using Claude for being a “Woke AI.” Right after he bombed Iran using Claude

AMD wants to be the great alternative to NVIDIA in AI chips, and Meta has a plan that involves both

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Meta has signed one of the largest contracts in history with AMD regarding chips for artificial intelligence. The agreement It represents a boost for AMD in its attempt to stand up to NVIDIA. It also shows how Lisa Su’s company intends to continue putting its foot even further into that little corner of circular financing that big technology companies have created in relation to AI. There are some nuances worth commenting on, so let’s get down to it. The agreement. Meta will purchase enough chips from AMD to power data centers with up to six gigawatts of computing power over the next five years. Just like esteem According to the Wall Street Journal, the total value of the contract would exceed $100 billion, since each gigawatt represents tens of billions in revenue for AMD, according to the company itself. First deliveries will begin in the second half of 2026, with a first gigawatt of AMD’s new MI450 chips. There is more. The agreement is not only about buying chips. As part of the pactAMD will offer Meta purchase guarantees (warrants) to acquire up to 160 million AMD shares at a symbolic price of one cent per share, which could make Meta the owner of up to 10% of the company. Of course, there are conditions, since the titles will be released in tranches as certain technical and commercial milestones are met. The last tranche will only be unlocked if AMD stock reaches $600, according to share the WSJ. On Monday it closed at $196.60, and after hearing the news, AMD shares have risen more than 10% in pre-opening. AMD seeks its place alongside NVIDIA. The company led by Lisa Su has been trying to gain ground in a market that NVIDIA dominates with more than 90% share. This agreement with Meta, together the one who signed with OpenAI in October in very similar terms, is its most ambitious bet to achieve it. “Meta has a lot of options. I want to make sure we always have a clear place at the table when they think about what they need,” counted His at the press conference prior to the announcement. Meta doesn’t put all her eggs in one basket. Zuckerberg’s company is not betting exclusively on AMD. Last week too closed an agreement with NVIDIA to acquire millions of its chips for tens of billions of dollars, and also is in talks with Google for the use of its AI processors. “At the scale at which we operate, there is room for all three,” counted Santosh Janardhan, head of infrastructure at Meta. The company’s strategy involves diversifying suppliers and ensuring sufficient supply for its major expansion. Meta spent 72 billion dollars last year in data centers and plans to disburse up to 135,000 million this year. And back to circular financing. Meta pays AMD for chips, and AMD returns some of that money in the form of shares. A similar scheme that we already saw in the agreement with AMD and OpenAI, but also identical to that of the rest of the big technology companies around AI. The problem of demand is also worth noting. And Reuters stood out the words of Matt Britzman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, who said that although Meta is securing supply and diversifying, “having to give up 10% of its capital suggests that AMD could have difficulty generating organic demand.” What’s coming now. The AI ​​race is not only fought in laboratories, but also in the field of finance. For AMD, the challenge now is to demonstrate that its chips live up to the demands. For Meta, the goal is to build with them “tens of gigawatts this decade and hundreds of gigawatts or more over time,” in words from Zuckerberg himself. All this while we are witnessing unprecedented spending on infrastructure and energy and of which we apparently do not see the bottom line. Cover image | AMD and Meta In Xataka | IBM has been living for decades that no one could kill COBOL. Anthropic has other plans

The trial against Meta increasingly resembles that of tobacco. Zuckerberg has sworn things that his internal documents contradict

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Mark Zuckerberg has been testifying under oath in Los Angeles in what is already considered the largest trial in history against a social network. And each session leaves uncomfortable headlines for Meta. What is happening. A Los Angeles court judges whether Instagram is a platform designed to hook minors. The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified as KGM, alleges that she became addicted to Instagram when she was nine years old and that it ruined her mental health during her adolescence. It is not the only case, since behind this trial there are more than 1,600 plaintiffshundreds of families and more than 250 school districts with similar complaints against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap. These last two reached a financial agreement before the trial began. Meta and Google are still in. Tobacco. The parallel that is most repeated in the American media is that of the tobacco companies in the nineties, since the companies that knew about the damage caused by their products hid it and paid for the consequences decades later in court. Here the accusation holds that Meta designed features like the infinite scroll‘likes’, push notifications… All with the deliberate objective of maximizing the time that users spent in the app, including minors. The company’s internal documents are being the heaviest ammunition in the trial. What those documents say. During cross-examination, the plaintiff’s attorney, Mark Lanier, was presenting emails and internal messages from Meta before the jury. One of the most striking: a researcher from the company itself wrote in an email that “Instagram is a drug… we are basically traffickers,” according to shared the Financial Times. Another document, from 2018, estimated that in 2015 there were four million users under the age of 13 on Instagram, which was equivalent to approximately 30% of all American children between 10 and 12 years old. Zuckerberg had declared before Congress that minors under that age could not use the platform. Where the testimony squeaks. Zuckerberg insisted before the jury that Meta never aimed to maximize the time users spent in the app, that the company focuses on long-term “value” and “utility.” The problem is that the accusation brought to the table emails of his from between 2013 and 2022 in which this increase in screen time appears explicitly as an internal goal. He also presented documents from Adam Mosseri, director of Instagram, with specific objectives: reaching 40 minutes of daily use in 2023 and 46 minutes in 2026. Zuckerberg responded that these data are “milestones” to measure results, not objectives in themselves. lyou filters. One of the most tense moments of the statement came with questions about Instagram filters, you know, the ones that users can apply to their face through the camera. In 2019, Meta temporarily suspended them to study its impact. 18 experts consulted by the company itself concluded that they caused well-being problems, especially among adolescents, with effects linked to body dysmorphia. Zuckerberg decided to lift the restriction as well. At the trial he explained that he preferred “to err on the side of giving people the opportunity to express themselves” and that the restrictions seemed “paternalistic” to him. The prosecution also showed the jury an email from Margaret Stewart, then vice president of product design at Meta, warning that, although he would comply with Zuckerberg’s decision, he did not believe it was “the right decision given the risks.” Between the lines. What makes this trial especially delicate for Meta is not only what Zuckerberg says now, but the distance between that story and what has been revealed over time through internal documentation and emails. The accusation opts for a strategy in order to show that the company knew about it, that it discussed it internally and that it still prioritized the growth of its platform. What is at stake? Goal. An unfavorable ruling in Los Angeles would not only be an economic blow, as it would set a precedent for thousands of similar lawsuits that are waiting in courts across the country (and around the globe, perhaps). For now, there are similar cases planned for this summer in Northern California, focused on the impact on schools, and another trial already underway in New Mexico where the state attorney general accuses Meta of failing to protect minors from sexual predators on its platforms. “For the first time, Meta’s CEO will have to sit before a jury, under oath, and explain why the company launched a product that its own safety teams warned was addictive and harmful to children,” counted Matt Bergman, attorney representing hundreds of plaintiffs. And now what. The trial is expected to last until the end of March, according to they count from Bloomberg. Meta maintains its defense on two fronts: that science does not prove that social networks are addictive and that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act exempts them from responsibility for the content that users publish. The prosecution, however, insists that the case is not about content, but about deliberate decisions about how the application is built. Cover image | Solen Feyissa and Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | TikTok’s infinite scroll has just entered the EU’s crosshairs: Brussels marks it as “addictive design” and demands changes

We thought that the 72 billion that Meta spent on AI in 2025 were outrageous. It was just the appetizer

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The big tech companies They are spending a lot of money on AI infrastructure and, far from slackening, the figure is only increasing (and not a little). In the case of Meta, the company planned to spend $66 billion in 2025, but in October they had to correct the figure to $72 billion. 2026 has just begun and the figure they have just given is directly insane. Doubling down, literally. Between 115,000 and 135,000 million dollarsthese are the figures that Meta handles for the year 2026. It is almost double what they spent in 2025, a figure that, as we said, they had to correct towards the end of the year, so let’s not rule out that it ends up being more. The spending will mainly be intended to “support the efforts of Meta Superintelligence Labs”, that is, to build more data centers. Which by the way, more than 6 million dollars have been spent on advertising campaigns to convince us that data centers are cool. Record results. The fourth quarter of 2025 has been very good for Meta. Revenue grew 24% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching 59,000 million dollars and a net profit of 22,800 million dollars, figures that exceed forecasts. According to its CEO, the good results are thanks to the implementation of AI in its advertising services. Recovering confidence. In the previous quarter, the huge spending on AI generated many doubts among investors and, although the results were also good, shares fell up to 8%. This time it has been different and, although spending will skyrocket even more, shares are up 10%. It seems that they trust Zuckerberg’s direction again. Where is the ceiling? It is difficult to know, but what we do know is that since 2023 it has been increasing exaggeratedly. And not a little. According to Meta datain 2023 they spent 28 billion dollars, in 2024 they rose to 39 billion and in 2025 to 72 billion. The jump has been getting higher and higher with each year, I wonder when they will let off the accelerator. All for AI, but without AI. All the big technology companies are spending a lot on AI, but what is striking about the case of Meta is that has not yet launched its new models. To put it in context, Meta’s expected spending is higher than Google’s in 2025, but Google has Gemini while Meta has promises. After the fiasco of Call 4Zuckerberg set himself as a target Completely remodel your AI department. It was spent a fortune in hiring new talentscreated a secret laboratory next to his officeha cut the Metaverse department (also with layoffs) to move resources to AI. The ambition is huge: creating superintelligence. At the moment, what we know is that they are preparing a language model called Avocado and another for image generation that they call Mango. They better measure up, otherwise They will always have the public. Image | Unsplash, Meta In Xataka | Three years after the metaverse fiasco, Zuckerberg has another burning nail for Meta: digital glasses

Data centers are so important that Meta has spent millions on advertising to change our perception of them

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Meta has spent 6.4 million dollars on an advertising campaign between November and December of last year to convince the American public of the benefits of its data centers, according to the New York Times. The ads, aired in eight state capitals and Washington, DC, featured idealized images of American towns revitalized by these facilities. exists an increasingly significant social rejection on the installation of data centers dedicated to AI, especially due to the impact they have on the excessive consumption of basic resources like light and water. And of course, first we have to convince that they are key so that Meta and the rest of the big technology companies can continue with their operations. The Goal campaign. According to the media, the ads featured emotional stories about Altoona (Iowa) and Los Lunas (New Mexico), two locations where Meta operates data centers. With guitar music and shots of farms and football fields, the videos promised jobs and prosperity. “We are bringing jobs here, for ourselves and for our next generation,” the voiceover said. According to Michael Beach, CEO of Cross Screen Media, Meta “could have purchased these ads with the goal of influencing political decisions and reaching legislators.” Ryan Daniels, spokesperson for Meta, limited himself to say to the NYT that the company pays the full costs of the energy used by its data centers, without commenting on the advertising campaign. Meta is not alone. Just like account NYT, Amazon is funding a similar campaign in Virginia through Virginia Connects, a nonprofit created by the Data Center Coalition. From the Financial Times they point In addition, other operators such as Digital Realty, QTS and NTT Data are also acting more intensely to defend the construction of new facilities. Endurance. In the United States, social rejection has caused the cancellation of multimillion-dollar projects in Oregon, Arizona, Missouri, Indiana and Virginia. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen explained He told the NYT that the issue has become “a priority on Capitol Hill” when his voters began to complain en masse about electricity bills. Just like share The media, this month, Van Hollen presented a law to regulate the energy consumption of data centers. Even President Donald Trump spoke out on the matter: “The big tech companies that build them must pay their own way,” wrote a few weeks ago on Truth Social. electricity bill. Data centers have become critical infrastructures for the development of artificial intelligence, but there is increasing social tension over their installation. In October, Bloomberg counted that in the last five years the wholesale price of electricity in areas near large concentrations of data centers in the United States had increased by up to 267%. In Baltimore, residents paid $17 per megawatt-hour in 2020; In 2025 that figure reaches $38. On the other hand, the medium demonstrated In their research, 70% of the points where electricity price increases were recorded were less than 80 kilometers from data centers with significant activity. From Bloomberg they estimate that the energy demand of these facilities in the United States will double by 2035, becoming the largest increase since the 1960s. The situation in Spain. Our country is also experiencing a boom in the construction of data centers. The Community of Madrid, paradoxically the region with the greatest energy deficit in Spainconcentrates a good part of these projects and is expected to reach a power of 1.7 gigawatts in 2030. The consulting firm CBRE pointed out in a report that “there is no investor, operator or large technology company that does not have in its strategic plans to establish its data center project in the Iberian market.” Madrid, together with Barcelona, ​​already competes with cities such as Milan, Zurich or Berlin, although still far from the leading European group in terms of power capacity formed by Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin. What awaits us. According to Bloomberg, the forecasts they point because data centers will consume more than 4% of the world’s electricity in 2035. If these facilities were a country, they would be fourth in energy consumption, only behind China, the United States and India. Meanwhile, big technology companies are already exploring solutions such as modular nuclear reactors (SMR) to power your facilities, or send data centers to space. Cover image | Mark ZuckerbergGoal In Xataka | “The assemblies are not going to be done by AI”: we talk to the kids who have become carpenters, truck drivers and tinkerers

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