Meta Platforms said on Monday it plans to raise up to US$95 billion in its largest-ever equity fundraising, as the social media giant spends aggressively on its costly AI infrastructure expansion. The Facebook parent has launched public offerings worth about US$35 billion in common and preferred stock, and said it also plans to launch a separate at-the-market share sale programme worth up to US$60 billion. The company will launch the larger share sale programme after its new non-voting Class C shares begin trading, which is expected in the first quarter of 2027, but said it has not yet finalised its timing and terms of the sale. Meta's fundraising plan, which would rank among the biggest by an AI company, has also drawn interest of up to US$5 billion in total from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom for Class A shares. Their funding interest adds to concerns about an increasingly circular flow of capital in the AI industry, as chip suppliers help finance the expansion of one of their biggest customers. Meta has been pouring money into chips and data centres to compete better with OpenAI and Anthropic. Its latest fundraising further underscores a shift among big technology companies increasingly tapping debt markets and raising equity ⁠to bolster their AI infrastructure, having previously relied on cash to fund their investments. Earlier this year, Alphabet increased the size of its equity offerings to US$84.75 billion. Separately on Monday, SpaceX said an affiliate of Apollo Global Management will buy AI chips and server hardware and lease them to the rockets-to-AI firm, in a deal with total principal payments of about US$40 billion. Edited by Aaron Tam

Iran’s anti-negotiation hardliners turn against President Pezeshkian over negotiations with the US.