Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has announced plans to raise $95 billion through stock offerings to finance its expanding artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. The fundraising effort was unveiled on Monday amid broader concerns about the sustainability of funding within the AI and cloud infrastructure sector.

The company intends to raise the capital in two distinct phases. The first involves a $35 billion underwritten public offering, with several prominent chip manufacturers, including Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom, expressing interest as potential cornerstone investors. These cornerstone investors may acquire up to $5 billion worth of shares in this initial sale.

Following that, Meta plans to conduct a $60 billion at-the-market offering. This approach allows the company to sell newly created Class C common stock to investors at prevailing market prices over time. Meta introduced this new class of shares last week. They do not carry voting rights, enabling the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to raise funds without diluting his control over the firm.

Meta has increasingly invested in AI technologies, directing multibillion-dollar expenditures toward building and expanding datacenters, which are essential to running AI applications. The company's announced fundraising aims to support continued investment in AI infrastructure as well as AI-driven products and services.

The announcement comes amid heightened scrutiny of smaller players in the AI sector. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently warned that funding for emerging AI companies is dwindling, describing the industry’s “neocloud” datacenter providers—the firms that lease computational resources to AI developers—as facing “death and consolidation.” Musk’s comments highlight broader concerns over the financial viability of cloud infrastructure providers amidst escalating costs and competitive pressures.

Despite these market challenges, Meta’s large-scale capital raise underlines its commitment to aggressively expanding in the AI arena. By tapping into major technology partners as investors and leveraging non-voting stock offerings, Meta aims to secure substantial funding to maintain its competitive position in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.