Meta is set to report Q2 2026 earnings after the close today (July 29) with Wall Street expecting approximately $60.2 billion in revenue and $7.20 adjusted EPS. Analysts are projecting second-quarter capital expenditures of roughly $33.9 billion—nearly double the $16–18 billion the company spent in Q2 2025—driven by data center buildout and AI infrastructure expansion.
In April, Meta raised its full-year 2026 capex guidance to $125–145 billion from a prior range of $115–135 billion, citing higher component pricing and additional data center costs. However, the company spent only ~$19.8 billion on capex in Q1 2026, well below Street estimates, creating a cash flow timing problem: the remaining $105–125 billion must be deployed across three quarters, or guidance will look unrealistic.
Meta is additionally pursuing AI monetization: the company debuted Muse Spark 1.1 in mid-July (marketed as its "strongest model for agentic and coding work yet"), and is in preliminary talks with Anthropic on a potential $10 billion cloud computing capacity lease. Investors will scrutinize whether Meta discloses new capex guidance and how management justifies the intensity of spending relative to near-term ROI.
For architects: Meta's capex trajectory—and whether it sustains or raises the $125–145B ceiling—signals hyperscaler conviction on AI compute scarcity extending through 2027. A surprise upward revision, like Alphabet's $15 billion raise last week, would confirm multi-year capacity constraints and likely trigger broader selloffs in cloud stocks amid free-cash-flow concerns.