Meta is still burning money on AR/VR
Meta is still burning money on AR/VR
Meta 仍在 AR/VR 领域持续烧钱
When Meta released its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday evening, a colleague pointed out how Meta lost $4 billion on Reality Labs, the division responsible for its AR glasses, VR headsets, and VR software. I yawned at first. Meta losing $4 billion on Reality Labs just didn’t seem surprising. It’s a given. Reality Labs lost another $4 billion, and also, the sky is blue.
周三晚间，当 Meta 发布季度财报时，一位同事指出 Meta 在 Reality Labs（负责其 AR 眼镜、VR 头显和 VR 软件的部门）上亏损了 40 亿美元。起初我只是打了个哈欠。Meta 在 Reality Labs 上亏损 40 亿美元似乎并不令人惊讶。这已经是常态了。Reality Labs 又亏了 40 亿美元，就像天空是蓝色的一样理所当然。
Then I realized, that itself is notable — for Meta, losses on this unit are quite literally average behavior. Over its last 21 quarterly earnings reports, dating back to 2021, Meta has lost a total of $83.5 billion on Reality Labs, which comes out to an average of about $4 billion in losses each quarter. That is bananas!
随后我意识到，这一点本身就值得注意——对于 Meta 而言，该部门的亏损确实是“平均水平”。自 2021 年以来的 21 份季度财报显示，Meta 在 Reality Labs 上总共亏损了 835 亿美元，平均每个季度亏损约 40 亿美元。这简直太疯狂了！
Equally astounding is that as Meta pulls back from its metaverse ambitions, its spending on AI will be even more astronomical. True, it’s not like Meta doesn’t have the money. In the first quarter of this year, the social media giant posted a net income of $26.8 billion, up 61% over the year prior; revenue also increased 33% year-over-year to $56.3 billion.
同样令人震惊的是，随着 Meta 逐渐从元宇宙雄心中撤退，其在人工智能上的支出将更加天文数字。诚然，Meta 并非没钱。今年第一季度，这家社交媒体巨头公布的净利润为 268 亿美元，同比增长 61%；营收也同比增长 33%，达到 563 亿美元。
But despite its foundation in social media, Meta’s current goal is to stay competitive with AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta projected that it will spend between $125 billion and $145 billion in 2026, exceeding analysts’ projections and Meta’s previous estimates. “We are increasing our infrastructure capex forecast for this year,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a public call with investors on Wednesday. “Most of that is due to higher component costs, particularly memory pricing […] We are very focused on increasing the efficiency of our investments.”
尽管 Meta 立足于社交媒体，但其当前的目标是与 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 等人工智能领军企业保持竞争力。Meta 预计 2026 年的支出将在 1250 亿美元至 1450 亿美元之间，超过了分析师的预测和 Meta 此前的估计。Meta 首席执行官马克·扎克伯格在周三与投资者的公开电话会议上表示：“我们正在提高今年的基础设施资本支出预测。这主要是由于零部件成本上升，特别是内存定价……我们非常专注于提高投资效率。”
Meta also spent a lot of money to build a metaverse that no one really wanted or cared about. It’s going to take even more money to build an AI superintelligence that (maybe some) people actually want. Last year, Meta went on an expensive hiring spree, poaching over 50 AI researchers and engineers from competitors, which helped the company ship its newly overhauled AI model, Muse Spark, earlier this month.
Meta 曾花费巨资打造了一个没人真正想要或关心的元宇宙。而现在，它将需要投入更多的资金来构建一个（或许部分）人们真正想要的人工智能超级智能。去年，Meta 进行了昂贵的招聘狂潮，从竞争对手那里挖走了 50 多名人工智能研究人员和工程师，这帮助该公司在本月初发布了经过全面改进的人工智能模型 Muse Spark。
While CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported “large increases” in Meta AI use since that release, it’s only getting more expensive to build and maintain AI products. On the earnings call, one concerned investor asked if Meta could provide an outlook for its 2027 capital expenditures. The response wasn’t reassuring.
尽管首席执行官马克·扎克伯格报告称，自发布以来 Meta AI 的使用量“大幅增加”，但构建和维护人工智能产品的成本只会越来越高。在财报电话会议上，一位担忧的投资者询问 Meta 是否能提供 2027 年的资本支出展望。得到的回答并不令人放心。
“We aren’t providing a specific outlook for 2027 capex, and we are, frankly, undergoing a very dynamic planning process ourselves as we’re working through what our capacity needs will be over the coming years,” replied Meta CFO Susan Li. “Our experience so far has been that we have continued to underestimate our compute needs.”
“我们不会提供 2027 年资本支出的具体展望，坦率地说，我们自己正在经历一个非常动态的规划过程，以确定未来几年的产能需求，”Meta 首席财务官苏珊·李（Susan Li）回答道。“到目前为止，我们的经验是，我们一直低估了我们的计算需求。”
So, despite its impressive quarterly results, Meta’s investors aren’t thrilled. The stock was down more than 5% in after-hours trading.
因此，尽管季度业绩令人印象深刻，但 Meta 的投资者并不感到兴奋。该股在盘后交易中下跌了超过 5%。