Meta’s Powell McCormick Leads Partnership Push as Spending May Hit $145 Billion

Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick is tasked with developing capital partnerships for its computing expansion as the company projects $130 billion to $145 billion in companywide capital spending for 2026.

Appointed Jan. 12, Powell McCormick helps guide Meta’s strategy and works with its computing and infrastructure teams. Her mandate also includes finding strategic capital partners for the capacity Meta plans to build.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Jan. 28 that she would work with “governments, sovereigns, and strategic capital partners” to “expand our long-term capacity.” He described that work as part of Meta Compute, the company’s computing initiative.

Meta’s 2026 capital spending outlook includes principal payments on finance leases. On the same basis, the company recorded $31.08 billion in capital expenditures in the quarter ended June 30, 2026. The annual forecast and quarterly figure cover Meta as a whole, rather than AI infrastructure alone.

The figures show the scale of spending alongside Powell McCormick’s partnership assignment, but they measure different things. The forecast is a companywide spending range for the year; her stated role concerns strategy, computing infrastructure and relationships with potential capital partners.

In July, Meta announced a venture with BlackRock-managed funds to develop a data center campus in El Paso, Texas. The parties estimated total development costs at about $14 billion and planned a campus with one gigawatt of computing capacity. Under the announced terms, the funds would own 80% of the venture and Meta would retain 20%.

Powell McCormick spent 16 years at Goldman Sachs and served as deputy national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term. She joined Meta’s board in April 2025 and left it in December, before moving into management.