Shares of Meta Platforms surged more than 6% on Friday, reaching their highest level since April and capping a stunning weekly rally.
The roughly 15% weekly gain marked Meta’s strongest performance in years, erasing a year-to-date loss and pushing the stock into positive territory for 2026.
Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant benefited from a wave of bullish headlines that fundamentally shifted how Wall Street views the company’s AI ambitions.
Earlier in the week, Meta opened its AI models to external developers for the first time, a direct challenge to competitors OpenAI and Anthropic in the growing AI platform market.
The company also launched a new AI coding product, Muse Spark 1.1, designed to compete head-to-head with offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI in the fast-expanding developer tools space.
Where Meta previously consumed other companies’ AI infrastructure, it now pitches itself as the platform, a strategic pivot that investors appear to be embracing with considerable enthusiasm.
Meta also disclosed plans to begin production of its custom-designed data center chip, code-named “Iris,” starting in September, as part of a broader effort to boost overall computing power to 14 gigawatts next year.
BofA Securities reiterated its Buy rating and $835 price target on Meta following a Reuters report confirming the company is accelerating its AI infrastructure buildout with that custom chip.
BofA now estimates Meta will spend about $22 billion per gigawatt in 2026, less than half of its previous estimate of $45 billion, noting that building capacity under $30 billion per gigawatt offers attractive economics compared to rivals.
The bank noted those figures compare favorably to Amazon’s and Google’s estimated $10 to $16 billion in annual cloud revenue per gigawatt, underscoring Meta’s potential edge in infrastructure efficiency.
The enthusiasm was not confined to stock buyers, as options traders flooded in on Friday with volume on pace for more than three times the 30-day average.
A full 78% of the stock’s $1.8 billion in options premium was tied to calls, signaling that traders are positioning for continued upside in the near term.
The week’s momentum is a sharp contrast to April, when Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to between $125 billion and $145 billion and the stock immediately dropped 7% on the announcement.
Three major announcements this week appear to have rewritten that narrative, convincing investors that Meta’s heavy spending could translate into durable competitive advantages across AI infrastructure and developer ecosystems.
