Meta Platforms shares are down about 16% year to date as investors focus on the near-term cost of accelerating capital spending for artificial intelligence. Despite an 18% year-over-year decline in trailing-12-month free cash flow, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is continuing an aggressive AI compute build-out, stating, "As AI usage in our products and businesses continues to ramp, we continue to invest aggressively in infrastructure to meet the demand." In the second quarter, revenue from Meta's family of apps climbed 27% year over year to $59 billion, and the global average price per ad rose 12%. Instagram saw double-digit growth in time spent, while Facebook saw time spent increase 9% worldwide. Daily interactions in Meta AI were up 60% after the integration of its Muse Spark model. Through its Meta Compute initiative, the company announced a new 1-gigawatt data center with BlackRock. Second-quarter capital expenditures hit $30 billion, nearly wiping out free cash flow, which totaled just $1.7 billion. Management's full-year guidance calls for capex of $130 billion to $145 billion. CFO Susan Li noted, "The industry has under-built historically for the wave of AI adoption, making existing capacity, including our own, extremely valuable."