Meta to cut 8,000 jobs as AI infrastructure spending hits $135 billion

Meta Platforms is preparing to eliminate approximately 10 percent of its global workforce, a move that will affect roughly 8,000 employees. The social media conglomerate disclosed the reduction as part of a strategic shift to prioritize high-level artificial intelligence development and the heavy infrastructure required to support it.

As of December 31, 2025, the company reported a total headcount of 78,865. The upcoming layoffs follow a pattern of industry-wide adjustments where traditional roles are being sacrificed to fund the hardware and energy needs of the next-generation digital economy.

The financial scale of this transition is significant, with Meta projecting its 2026 capital expenditure to fall between $115 billion and $135 billion. In local terms, this represents a staggering investment of up to 17.5 trillion KSh. This spending surge is primarily attributed to the Meta Superintelligence Labs, an initiative focused on building out the physical and human capacity for advanced machine learning models.

Industry analysts note that the upper end of this budget nearly matches the entire gross domestic product of Kenya, highlighting the immense resources being poured into the tech sector's physical footprint. Most of this capital is expected to be funneled into specialized data centers, server hardware, and the recruitment of elite technical talent.

While the company continues to pursue what leadership terms as operating efficiency, the focus has clearly moved toward "Personal Superintelligence." During recent communications, executives signaled that 2026 will be the year these investments begin to change how the company operates internally.

There are indications that some of the infrastructure spending will also include payments to third-party cloud providers and the depreciation of existing data center assets. The firm has already implemented smaller rounds of cuts earlier this year, but this 10 percent reduction marks the most substantial workforce adjustment since the 2023 restructuring.

For the construction and infrastructure sectors, Meta's massive budget signals a continued boom in the development of hyper-scale data centers. These facilities are becoming the backbone of the global economy, requiring specialized cooling systems, massive power allocations, and complex structural engineering.

As Meta redirects its billions, the focus remains on whether these investments will deliver the promised productivity gains. The company expects that 2026 will serve as a pivotal period for delivering new business infrastructure, even as thousands of employees prepare to exit the organization in the coming month.