Meta Shares Surge Following Muse Spark AI Launch and Record 2026 Spending Projections

Meta Platforms, the Menlo Park-based technology leader, witnessed a substantial uptick in its stock value, with intraday trading reflecting a 9.5% increase. This momentum coincided with the unveiling of Muse Spark, a cutting-edge multimodal artificial intelligence foundation model. The strategic move indicates a shift for the corporation toward a closed-weight, product-driven AI ecosystem.

Developed by the Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) under the leadership of Chief AI Officer Alexander Wang, Muse Spark is engineered to challenge high-profile competitors like GPT-5.4 and Gemini 3.1 Pro. This launch signals Meta’s re-entry into the high-performance AI tier since the release of Llama 4 Maverick in April 2025. Unlike its predecessors, Muse Spark is not an open-weights model.

According to internal benchmarks, Muse Spark achieves performance metrics comparable to Llama 4 Maverick while utilizing only one-tenth of the computational power during training. The model has shown particularly strong results in the healthcare sector, achieving a score of 42.8 on the HealthBench Hard metric, outperforming GPT-5.4’s 40.1. This precision was made possible by leveraging training data curated by more than 1,000 medical professionals.

In tandem with the technological rollout, Meta announced an unprecedented expansion of its infrastructure budget, projecting 2026 capital expenditures (CapEx) to fall between $115 billion and $135 billion. This massive investment nearly doubles the 2025 expenditure of approximately $72 billion. These projections align Meta's spending trajectory with industry peers such as Alphabet and Microsoft.

Corporate leadership noted that the primary drivers of this spending involve hardware acquisition and the construction of new data centers, including significant projects planned for Ohio and Louisiana. This aggressive expansion strategy is moving forward despite various legal hurdles the company has faced in recent months.

Legal challenges include a notable $375 million fine in New Mexico concerning allegations of child exploitation and misleading consumers about platform safety. Additionally, a California jury found Meta and YouTube liable for intentionally designing addictive features that caused mental distress to a young user, resulting in a $4.2 million penalty. These verdicts highlight the increasing legal accountability regarding product design in social media.

To help offset the immense $135 billion infrastructure commitment, Meta has entered into substantial external agreements. These include a $21 billion contract with CoreWeave for cloud capacity through December 2032 and a $27 billion deal with Nebius. Despite the heavy investment, Meta expects its 2026 operating income to rise above 2025 levels, with a projected tax rate between 13% and 16%, underscoring the resilience of its core advertising revenue.