Meta, the owner of Facebook, plans to raise $35 bln through a share offering. The goal is to finance development in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). This is stated in documents published on Monday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, the American stock market regulator).
In addition, Meta announced its intention to conduct an additional share offering of up to $60 bln. The timing of this issue has not yet been determined.
These steps followed several days after Meta created a new class of non-voting shares. According to the company, this will give it more flexibility to raise capital amid competition in the AI field. Since the new shares do not carry voting rights, their issuance does not dilute the control of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, key suppliers for AI-focused data center papers, have expressed interest in the offering of ordinary shares worth up to $5 bln. However, as Meta notes, this interest is not legally binding.
The company is actively increasing spending on developing AI capabilities, and investors are waiting for signs that these investments are paying off.
Earlier, Google's parent company Alphabet raised $85 bln through a share offering to finance its own expansion of data centers for AI tasks.