Zuckerberg says Meta won't slow down AI spend despite DeepSeek's breakthrough
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday said it's too early to tell what impact DeepSeek's breakthrough AI model will have on his company and the broader tech industry.
Still, Zuckerberg poured cold water on the notion that Meta's overall AI spending will soon drop now that DeepSeek has allegedly proven that cutting-edge AI requires far less money and computing resources than previously thought.
"It's probably too early to really have a strong opinion on what this means for the trajectory around infrastructure and CapEx," Zuckerberg said. "There are a bunch of trends that are happening here all at once."
The technology markets were reeling this week over an AI model created by DeepSeek, which is a Hangzhou-based AI lab linked to the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer. DeepSeek claims it only took two months and less than $6 million to develop its R1 large language model. That news caused Nvidia shares to tank 17% on Monday because of the implications that companies don't need as many of the chip-maker's graphics processing units for their own artificial-intelligence projects.
Zuckerberg discussed DeepSeek during a call with analysts Wednesday as part of Meta's fourth-quarter earnings. The company reported that sales rose 21% year over year to $48.39 billion, ahead of Wall Street expectations.
Meta's shares rose nearly 2% on Monday, indicating some investors believe DeepSeek's cost-efficiency could mean the social media company may be able to create powerful AI systems for less money. Meta announced last week plans to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion this year as part of its AI push. The company on Wednesday said its 2025 total expenses would come in between $114 billion to $119 billion.
Zuckerberg said Meta is still