Technology and social media giant Meta has announced a planned $97.5 billion sale of stock to fund its continued investment in AI, even as investor appetite for the technology is increasingly stretched.

The stock offering will consist of two tranches. The first, up to $37.5 billion, is further split between a $25 billion common stock offering and around $12.5 billion of preferred stock offered to the deal’s underwriters. The $25 billion of class A shares was increased Tuesday from its previously announced $22.5 billion size.

This raise has already drawn interest of up to a total $5 billion from Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, according to Meta. Nvidia said in a separate statement that it would invest $3 billion in the equity offering.

The second, larger tranche, will consist of a sale of around $60 billion of its previously announced class C stock. The sale is expected to begin when the new stock type is launched. Class C stock does not offer voting rights, meaning this issuance will not dilute owner Mark Zuckerberg’s control over the company.

Zuckerberg, who founded the company as TheFacebook in 2004, owns 13 per cent of Meta but holds 61 per cent of the voting rights.

In its investor statement, Meta said that the issuance would be used for “general corporate purposes”, with a focus on its ongoing AI development.

Its AI investments are already generating tangible returns through “increased engagement, improved advertising performance and increased monetisation”, the statement said, and it continues to pursue new opportunities in the AI space.

A large amount of the investment is going into building the data centres needed to fuel the AI boom. Meta said that it expects between $135 billion and $145 billion of capital expenditures in 2026.

If successful, this fundraising will be among the largest ever completed by an AI company, and will serve as a fresh test of investor appetite for the technology.

The vast amounts of capital already deployed into the sector are making some investors wary of further spending. Last week, OpenAI was forced to cut its valuation target by $15 billion after lower-than-expected demand for its latest funding round, while data centre bond yields continue to rise.

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