On 26 October Meta launched equity offerings of about $35 billion: $22.5 billion of common stock through forward sale agreements and $12.5 billion of mandatory convertible preferred shares. According to its filing, Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom have indicated non-binding interest in up to $5 billion. The company plans to raise up to roughly $95 billion in total to cover data centre spending. It follows the proposal for a new non-voting share class announced the previous week.

What it means: That one of the most profitable companies in the world needs to raise tens of billions through new shares shows how expensive the race for AI infrastructure has become. Until now the big tech groups mostly paid for data centres from their own cash and from borrowing, and now they are turning to equity as well. Chipmakers appearing as possible buyers also shows how intertwined customers and suppliers have become in this market. For Greek businesses the direct effect is small, but there are two indirect ones. First, while platforms spend this much on infrastructure, they will look for ways to earn it back, so changes to advertising prices and paid AI features on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp Business are likely. Second, demand for power, chips and memory from such projects affects the cost and availability of computing for everyone, and so the cloud prices that smaller companies pay. Firms that rely heavily on Meta advertising should watch their cost per result closely and spread spending across channels.

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