Meta Q2 Revenue Expected Near $60B; Zuckerberg's $125–$145B Data Center Bet in Focus

Meta Platforms will report second-quarter earnings on July 29, with Wall Street analysts expecting revenue of roughly $60 billion（約9.6兆円）, placing the company near the top of its own guidance range. The stock has staged a quiet recovery in recent months, clawing back from a slide of 20% earlier this year to within about 5% of where it started 2026—a rebound that reflects a shift in investor sentiment around the company's capital spending plans.

Behind Meta's familiar advertising business, Zuckerberg is quietly orchestrating a transformation into a compute provider. He has raised the company's 2026 capital spending plan to a staggering $125 billion（約20兆円） to $145 billion（約23兆円）, the vast majority aimed at building out AI data centers on a scale few companies can match. Meta is deploying more than 1 gigawatt of custom chips it developed with Broadcom, alongside processors from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. The more intriguing part, according to the article, is what Meta might do with all that hardware. Reports suggest the company is exploring becoming a cloud infrastructure provider—effectively renting out computing power the way fellow hyperscalers Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft do. A potential multibillion-dollar compute deal with AI lab Anthropic is mentioned as part of this exploration. If successful, this move would layer an entirely new business on top of Meta's advertising empire, turning what has been a massive cost center into a possible revenue engine.

For the upcoming earnings call, investors are being told to focus less on the headline $60 billion（約9.6兆円） revenue figure, which looks likely to be hit, and more on evidence that Meta's enormous AI spending is paying off. That evidence would come in two forms: first, signs that AI is further improving ad targeting and engagement, and second, concrete evidence that the compute build-out is generating direct revenue through capacity deals with external customers. The stock's 20% drop earlier in the year came after the company boosted its capital expenditure forecast, and investors flinched at the price tag. The recovery since suggests they have regained some faith in the company's plans—but it also means the bar is now higher. Another surprise capex boost or thin evidence of monetization could reignite the fears that drove the earlier sell-off. Ultimately, Meta's Q2 report will hinge less on hitting a revenue target and more on whether Zuckerberg's plan to transform the company into a compute provider justifies the jaw-dropping costs of its data center build-out.

Meta's earnings report on July 29 arrives at a critical inflection point for the company's strategy. The stock's recovery from a 20% decline earlier in the year—driven largely by investor anxiety over the massive capex forecast—suggests the market has begun to accept Zuckerberg's vision, but it has also raised the bar for what constitutes good news. The company's advertising business remains robust and is still growing at an impressive clip, which should support the $60 billion（約9.6兆円） revenue expectation. However, the body of the article makes clear that the headline revenue figure is no longer the metric that truly matters.

Instead, investors are now evaluating whether Meta's enormous AI spending can be converted into a new, direct revenue stream. The company is deploying more than 1 gigawatt of custom chips alongside processors from major vendors, and Zuckerberg is explicitly exploring compute-rental deals with external customers such as Anthropic. If this pivot succeeds—if Meta can layer a compute-provider business onto its already-profitable advertising operation—it would represent a fundamental shift in the company's financial architecture. But the scale of the bet is equally fundamental; $125 billion（約20兆円） to $145 billion（約23兆円） is a commitment that only a handful of companies on Earth can make. The question on July 29 will not be whether Meta grows its ad revenue, but whether there is concrete evidence that the compute build-out is beginning to generate returns.

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