Joel Kaplan, Meta chief global affairs officer joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the company's $600 billion investment towards AI infrastructure and jobs in the U.S., Meta's superintelligence ambitions, the company's Llama AI model, and more.

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

Rise of AI

Meta is investing $600 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure and jobs in the United States, aiming to develop 'personal superintelligence' accessible to its 3.5 billion daily users. Joel Kaplan, Meta's Chief Global Affairs Officer, highlighted the company's partnerships, such as those with private credit firms, to help finance these large-scale data center projects and emphasized Meta's focus on wearables, including AI-powered glasses, as a key technology for delivering AI to users.

Kaplan also addressed the political and regulatory challenges Meta faces, particularly from the U.S. and European Union, noting the importance of American leadership in AI and the need for Western democracies to collaborate. He credited U.S. government support for helping Meta navigate regulatory barriers and stressed the significance of harmonized approaches among allies to remain competitive with China in the global AI race.

Meta's Joel Kapla: Our ambition to build 'personal superintelligence'

Another company investing an enormous amount in AI 600 billion dollars in this case meta Investing in AI infrastructure and jobs in the United States joining us right now is Joel Kaplan He's met his chief global affairs officer Joel. It's great to have you on the broadcast great to be here. Thanks And so we've been having this sort of running debate with all sorts of business leaders this morning Especially in the AI big tech hyper scalar space about the economics of it about whether it all works whether all maths out You're spending an extraordinary amount of money, but you're also doing it slightly differently Which is in some cases you've actually partnered with others And I'm thinking of Blue Owl and the like in terms of private credit So that you're not actually paying for all of it when you're building some of these data centers How are you thinking about it? And how do you think the way you're thinking about it may be different than some of the others? Well, thanks Andrew. I mean the first thing is what we're trying to build our ambition is to build personal superintelligence Which means putting superintelligence in the hands of everyone. We've got a platform that serves 3.5 billion people every day So we have some real advantages there and we are spending a lot of money to build them the massive Data center and power infrastructure necessary to bring that vision to fruition And we're confident that with the right models and the right products We're gonna be able to build personal superintelligence and but in terms of offsetting some of that cost I mean you right now I think you were probably on the sort of edge of the envelope for doing it in terms of In terms of the economics of doing it that way compared to some of the others Yeah, I mean I don't want to get into too many of the details of the financing just to say we've got a strong core business that helps us fund and finance this Infrastructure investment and we're gonna look at lots of different ways to bring the strategic capital to bear To make sure that we can fund that infrastructure We do think meta is ultimately right now in the AI race Which is to say we talk a lot about open AI we talk a lot about Google and Gemini You can go down the list, but we don't talk yet at the same with the same sort of cadence about Lama Which which is the model that you guys have been working on for a long time? Yeah, so we bring a lot of advantages to the race. Like I said, we've got the 3.5 billion people using it We've got a real lead on wearables, which we think is going to be the next computing technology that actually brings that personal superintelligence to bear because Glasses the partnership we have with Rabin and Oakley glasses Let's let's use let's say I see what you see hear what you hear talk to you throughout the day So we think that's the the right form factor to bring AI to people We've got some work to do to catch up on the frontier with our models I think we're gonna get there this year and then we're gonna match Model or the other thing is distribution. Sorry on just surface area. So you have amazing surface area meaning I am as addicted I hate to say it to the gram as the kids say as anybody and same with whatsapp same with you know People going to a classic blue Facebook, right? The question is how that ultimately translates into the place I go to to either chat with a bot or do other things for me. Yeah So right now we already have a billion monthly active users using meta AI across our services So we start with that advantage now We've got to bring the frontier models to bear and we got to release the products that make people want to come and use that as frequently as They need in their daily lives to make them more effective more productive and just make them Enjoy the things that they're doing online Joel how do you navigate the political headwinds that are coming out of Washington coming out of the European Union coming out of so many different places because Let's see It feels to me like businesses that get caught in the cross currents are facing much choppier waters than they were before Yeah Well, we've had the advantage that the president Bush's and the president Trump since he came into office has been really focused on maintaining American leadership in AI and making sure that we win the AI race against China and that means Clearing away the barriers to innovation whether that's data center and energy permitting Whether that's just making sure that we can make the investments with confidence that we need in this infrastructure And so we've had that advantage and that's been a big support for us as we've made these investments does it create problems though when he says things that irritate European leaders to the point where things have gotten pretty tense because you have a lot of business here too and I thought for a while that the Administration might be helping with some of those things to try and tamp back some of the over regulatory reach from the EU Is that not the case and they've been a huge? Yeah They've been a huge ally and pushing back on some of the discriminatory Regulation that we've seen come out of Europe and that's been very helpful to us and other American companies You know, there've been lots of discussions about tariffs over the last year so far We've been able to manage and ensure that we can continue to grow our business and and offer Consumers and small businesses throughout Europe the advantages our platforms offer And you know, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to continue going forward Let me ask you a question. Maybe you think about it like this I would say and I would say Facebook in particular or meta Was always considered or tried to be and I think a lot of companies tried to be quote neutral companies Globally neutral not necessarily even thinking of themselves as American companies versus something else. They were global companies They'd come here and they'd be global companies. And now there's such an emphasis on national champions There's such an emphasis at least in the United States But I would say because maybe of what's happening the US then national champions elsewhere and therefore you see a splintering of all of it How does meta which is a hopefully global company I imagine for your purposes work through that? Well, we're an American company that serves the world and we're an American company that's investing massively in AI and AI Infrastructure and we're aligned with the administration in the US that it's very important that we win this battle against China It's the most critical battle that we'll have over the coming years for both our national and economic security But that's a that's a battle that not only the US but all of the Western democracies have a stake in So we think it's really important that we progress on this together with our friends and allies around the world Because this this race is too much. You see a splintering We just had Ray Dalio on the broadcast and he made the argument that basically the whole globe is effectively coming undone Well so far, we're not really seeing that on the technology front Obviously, we've got a very serious competitor in China We need to make sure that we invest the resources that we clear away the regulatory burdens That's why it's so important that President Trump has pushed to eliminate discriminatory burdens on AI development and other technology in Europe We need to make sure that we're aligned and we're harmonized in the way that we approach this because this is a battle we have to win

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said the European Union should not bend to 'the law of the strongest.' He told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that it was staggering that the EU was having to contemplate using its 'anti-coercion instrument' against the U.S. (Macron is wearing dark glasses because of an eye condition.)

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Billionaire wealth surged at three times ‍its recent pace ​last year to reach its highest level on record, deepening economic and political divides that threaten democratic ⁠stability, anti-poverty group Oxfam said.

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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni won his seventh term with 71.65% of votes, according to official results Saturday, defeating the youthful challenger who campaigned for change after four decades of the same government.

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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met with President Donald Trump on Thursday at the White House. She presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal, which was seen as a peace offering to win his support.

Meta's Joel Kapla: Our ambition to build 'personal superintelligence'

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