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Meta Platforms quietly announced on February 24, 2026 that it has struck a long-term agreement with AMD to power much of its AI infrastructure, a move that accelerates a costly and risky arms race inside Big Tech. The company says the deal could deliver up to six gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs, with shipments beginning in the second half of 2026, as Meta doubles down on its “personal superintelligence” ambitions.
Reports make clear this is no ordinary supplier contract but a complex financial arrangement that could be worth tens of billions — with estimates ranging as high as $60 billion to $100 billion over time — and a performance-based warrant that could let Meta acquire up to 160 million AMD shares at tiny strike prices. The structure echoes the circular, milestone-driven deals we saw last year and raises legitimate questions about corporate governance and market stability when suppliers and customers become entangled in equity swaps.
This isn’t the first time AMD has cut such a deal: the chipmaker signed a similar multi-gigawatt partnership with OpenAI not long ago, underscoring an industry trend of baking financing and equity into chip supply arrangements. Those arrangements may shore up demand for AMD today, but they also create an interdependent web of obligations that can magnify losses if the AI demand curve turns.
Conservative observers should be particularly skeptical of the financial sleight-of-hand on display — tech executives are rearranging balance sheets and issuing warrants that could hand control of critical suppliers to the very firms that buy their silicon. Journalists and policymakers have already flagged these circular deals as potential systemic risks to markets and a looming governance nightmare if milestones aren’t met or if stock-price triggers prove unrealistic.
Meta’s push for massive AI infrastructure also comes with a daunting price tag: the company is preparing to nearly double its AI infrastructure spending, a strategy that looks awfully close to throwing money at prestige projects without clear paths to profit or public benefit. When corporate giants treat infrastructure like a political arms race, taxpayers and ordinary investors are the ones left holding the bag if expectations don’t pan out.
Proponents will tout diversification away from Nvidia as smart risk management, but the scale and the stock-for-chips mechanics merit scrutiny rather than applause. There’s a line between smart procurement and a speculative binge driven by executive hubris and competitive FOMO, and this deal looks dangerously close to the latter.
Americans watching from outside the server rooms should insist on clarity, accountability and restraint: regulators need to understand the tangled guarantees, shareholders deserve plain answers, and Congress should consider whether these mega-deals create concentrations of power that deserve oversight. If free markets are to work, they must be allowed to reward true innovation rather than financial engineering and the political influence of tech titans.
