Meta stock rallies 15% in best week since early 2024; Muse Spark 1.1 and Iris chip drive AI optimism
Meta shares surged 6% on Friday and 15% for the week—the best performance since early 2024—as investor sentiment improved around CEO Mark Zuckerberg's AI strategy and product releases. The rally erased META's year-to-date losses and lifted the stock up more than 2% year-over-year, though still trailing the Nasdaq's 13% gain.
The week featured two major AI announcements: Tuesday's launch of Muse Image for creator tools and advertiser subscriptions, and Thursday's debut of Muse Spark 1.1, focused on agentic and coding workloads. These releases position Meta as a credible competitor against OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in foundational AI models, with engineering led by Alexandr Wang at Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Additional momentum came from reports that Meta's in-house Iris chip will enter manufacturing in September as the company targets 14 gigawatts of computing power next year. Bank of America estimates this signals potential cost efficiencies per megawatt that exceed Street expectations, validating Meta's vertical integration strategy for AI infrastructure.
Sources
- Primary source
- cnbc.com
“Meta shares rallied on Friday, lifting their gains for the week to 15%, on pace for the best weekly performance since early 2024”
- cnbc.com
“On Tuesday, Meta released Muse Image... And on Thursday, the company unveiled Muse Spark 1.1, aimed at running agentic and coding workloads”
- cnbc.com
“Meta expects to start manufacturing its first chip, code-named Iris, in September as part of its goal to reach 14 gigawatts of computing power next year”