"Investing 'very heavily' in capital expenditure and infrastructure is going to be a strategic advantage over time," Mark Zuckerberg said.

Key tech stocks were a mixed bag in early trading Thursday after executives at Meta and Microsoft said they plan to keep pouring billions of dollars into AI – despite lingering anxiety over the launch of China-based DeepSeek’s AI model.

Chinese startup DeepSeek claims to offer competitive AI models at lower costs, raising doubts about U.S. tech giants' investments in AI. Microsoft and Meta defend their significant spending, highlighting its importance for long-term strategic advantage amidst increasing demand for AI solutions.

(Reuters) -Investors punished Microsoft with a 6% share drop on Thursday as hefty AI bets failed to drive a big increase in its cloud revenue, while Meta rose 4% after CEO Mark Zuckerberg assured Wall Street about growth with promises of a "really big year".

(Reuters) -Microsoft shares fell 3.5% in premarket trading on Thursday after the company issued a downbeat forecast for its cloud business, while Meta rose 2.6% after beating quarterly revenue estimates.

Meta Platforms and most other U.S. stocks are rising Thursday following a rush of profit reports from some of the country’s most influential companies, but drops for Nvidia and Microsoft are keeping the market in check.