The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Meta has increased its capital spending plans for next year by 73 per cent to pursue "superintelligence," aiming to provide highly personalized artificial intelligence for its vast social media user base. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that Meta also forecast first quarter revenue above Wall Street expectations and beat profit and revenue estimates for its quarter ended Dec. 31. Meta expects 2026 capital expenditures of $115-billion to $135-billion, mainly due to infrastructure costs, payments to cloud providers and increased depreciation of AI data-centre assets (all figures U.S.). This contrasts with a projected $109-billion capex budget and the $72.22-billion spent last year. Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said, "This is going to be a big year for delivering personal superintelligence." Meta forecast 2026 total expenses to be in the range of $162-billion and $169-billion, up from $117.69-billion a year ago, driven by rising employee compensation as the company spends millions to hire top AI talent. For the first quarter, Meta expects revenue between $53.5-billion and $56.5-billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $51.41-billion.