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NVIDIA and Meta Deepen Their AI Alliance—and the Spending Numbers Are Enormous
Written by Jeffrey Neal Johnson. Publication Date: 2/19/2026.
Key Points
- The expanded agreement ensures that Meta will utilize the upcoming Rubin architecture and Vera processors to build its future data centers.
- New confidential computing technology allows WhatsApp to run advanced artificial intelligence features while maintaining strict user privacy encryption.
- This multigenerational partnership secures a long and reliable revenue stream for NVIDIA as it cements its position as the engine of the global economy.
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The artificial intelligence (AI) trade has evolved from a speculative gold rush into a heavily industrialized arms race. On Feb. 17, 2026, two of the market's most dominant forces, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), announced an expansion of their partnership.
This multigenerational agreement moves beyond one-off hardware purchases and establishes a deep co-design collaboration intended to secure computing infrastructure for the next decade. Investors immediately recognized the financial significance of the deal: NVIDIA shares rose about 2.3% to near $189, while Meta shares gained roughly 0.6% to around $641.
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Get the details on this opportunity before the 2026 launch.The market reaction suggests Wall Street views this alliance as a necessary step for Meta to compete for consumer AI dominance and as further confirmation of the durability of NVIDIA's long-term revenue stream.
The Vera-Rubin Roadmap: Ditching Legacy Tech
The most significant element of the deal isn't what Meta is buying today, but what it has committed to buying tomorrow. Meta confirmed it will deploy millions of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs immediately to handle present workloads. More importantly, the company signed a formal agreement to adopt NVIDIA's upcoming Rubin architecture and the Vera CPU.
That commitment to the Vera CPU represents a strategic pivot in how data centers are built. Historically, AI servers paired NVIDIA GPUs with CPUs from competitors such as Intel or AMD. This agreement signals Meta is moving toward a full-stack dependency on NVIDIA. By adopting NVIDIA's Arm-based CPUs — both current Grace models and future Vera chips — Meta is streamlining its infrastructure.
For NVIDIA, this is a major competitive win: it broadens the company's moat by ensuring control of more of the server rack, not just the GPU. For Meta, the tighter integration promises higher performance and efficiency. The deal also includes adopting NVIDIA's Spectrum‑X Ethernet networking, designed to reduce latency. In AI training, milliseconds of delay can translate into millions of dollars in lost efficiency, making the networking upgrade a critical part of the agreement.
Personal Superintelligence: The Revenue Vision
Understanding the hardware is only half the story; investors need to understand the strategic rationale. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been explicit: Meta's goal is Personal Superintelligence — a highly personalized, intelligent AI agent available to its billions of users across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. This is envisioned as a proactive digital assistant that knows your schedule, preferences and relationships, not just a chatbot.
That vision faces a major hurdle: privacy. WhatsApp is defined by end‑to‑end encryption, and users are unlikely to embrace AI features that require Meta to read private messages. If users don't trust the AI, they won't use it and Meta won't be able to monetize it.
To address this, the expanded partnership includes Confidential Computing. This approach lets NVIDIA's chips process data while it remains encrypted, enabling WhatsApp to perform powerful AI tasks on users' messages without exposing the underlying content. By resolving this privacy paradox, Meta hopes to roll out AI agents to 2 billion WhatsApp users faster than competitors, creating a large new revenue and engagement stream without triggering regulatory or consumer backlash.
Sticker Shock: Inside the $135 Billion Bill
Building this future is enormously expensive, and the price tag has drawn attention on Wall Street. Meta surprised some conservative observers with its 2026 capital expenditure (CapEx) guidance: $115 billion to $135 billion for the year. For context, collective CapEx for the Big Tech cohort — including Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) — is estimated to reach nearly $650 billion in 2026.
That scale of spending splits investors. Bears argue that more than $100 billion in a single year damages profit margins and creates risk: if the AI boom slows, Meta could be left with depreciating hardware. Bulls counter that this is defensive spending — building massive compute clusters now avoids paying rent to cloud providers like Microsoft or Amazon later. If Meta doesn't invest, it risks becoming a tenant in a digital ecosystem it once helped define.
For NVIDIA shareholders, Meta's spending translates into direct revenue. The deal is a major catalyst ahead of NVIDIA's fiscal Q4 earnings report scheduled for Feb. 25, 2026. Analysts expect the chipmaker to report roughly $65.5 billion in revenue for the quarter. The partnership supports the view that demand is accelerating as the world's largest companies lock in chip supply for future generations.
Metrics and Multiples: Buying the Future
Despite the huge numbers, analysts remain largely bullish on both stocks — albeit for different reasons. The consensus is that the AI market is moving from a training phase into a deployment phase, which requires even more hardware than previously estimated.
NVIDIA trades at a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of about 47. While high for an industrial company, NVIDIA's rapid growth makes that multiple appear reasonable to many growth investors. With an average analyst price target near $264, the implied upside from current levels is over 40%. The market is effectively betting that additional deals like Meta's will sustain NVIDIA's growth for years.
Meta Platforms tells a different story. Trading at a P/E of roughly 27, it is valued more like a traditional utility than a high‑flying tech stock. That discount reflects market nervousness about the $135 billion spending plan. Yet with price targets averaging between $835 and $850, analysts see substantial upside if Zuckerberg's bet on Personal Superintelligence pays off.
A Partnership for the Next Decade
The expanded alliance between NVIDIA and Meta signals that the AI arms race has no finish line in sight. By locking in supply for chips that won't ship until 2027, Meta is signaling that it sees AI not as a feature but as the core utility of the future internet.
For investors, the takeaway is straightforward. NVIDIA has entrenched itself as a central supplier of the infrastructure powering the AI economy, securing revenue streams that could extend for years. Meta is wagering its financial heft on the idea that whoever owns the best infrastructure will own the consumer relationship. As 2027 approaches, the success of this partnership is likely to help determine the trajectory of the entire tech sector.
3 Major Buybacks Just Dropped—Here's the Signal Investors See
By Leo Miller. Originally Published: 2/23/2026.
Key Points
- Walmart, Lyft, and Equitable each announced sizable repurchase authorizations, signaling continued focus on per-share value creation.
- Lyft’s buyback capacity is the most aggressive relative to market cap, while Walmart’s is the largest in absolute dollars.
- Equitable pairs buybacks with a dividend and a rebound narrative, with analysts still forecasting meaningful upside.
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Several major companies recently expanded their share-repurchase authorizations, giving them fresh capacity to retire stock in 2026. In a market where buybacks increasingly drive per-share results, that kind of firepower can provide a meaningful tailwind—especially when growth is uneven and investors are scrutinizing capital allocation.
The headlines cover three very different corners of the market: a consumer-staples heavyweight, a beaten-down ride-hailing name, and a financial-services firm overseeing more than $1 trillion in assets. The scale varies widely, from sizable to outsized, with one new authorization equal to nearly 18% of the company's market value.
Walmart Announces Biggest Buyback Ever as Shares Climb
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Get the details on this opportunity before the 2026 launch.First up is retail behemoth Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT). Walmart delivered an impressive performance in 2025, with a total return of roughly 24%. Even after a post-earnings dip, the stock remains up about 10% in 2026 as investors rotate into consumer-staples names early in the year.
Walmart continues to demonstrate robust financial performance, especially its e-commerce push. E-commerce sales rose 24% year-over-year (YOY) last quarter and reached a record 23% of revenue. Advertising revenue increased 37%, and membership income rose 15%—important drivers of margin improvement.
To cap a strong year, Walmart announced a $30 billion share-buyback authorization—its largest to date. The program is equal to roughly 3.1% of Walmart's about $980 billion market capitalization, giving the company substantial ability to reduce its outstanding share count and support earnings-per-share growth. Notably, shares outstanding fell by around 0.8% in 2025.
Walmart also approved a 5% increase to its quarterly dividend, underscoring a two-pronged approach to returning capital to shareholders. The stock's indicated dividend yield is now near 0.8%.
LYFT Holds +15% Buyback Capacity as Shares Get Hit in 2026
Ride-hailing company LYFT (NASDAQ: LYFT) returned about 50% in 2025 but has fallen more than 25% so far in 2026. That decline was largely driven by LYFT's latest earnings report, which triggered a more than 20% two-day drop after revenue of $1.59 billion—up 3% YOY—missed expectations of $1.76 billion.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) grew 37% to $154 million, comfortably beating estimates. Still, Q1 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $120 million to $140 million was viewed as weak.
LYFT also announced a $1 billion share-repurchase program. With a market capitalization around $5.6 billion, that authorization equals roughly 17.8% of the company's value. LYFT sharply accelerated buybacks in 2025, spending about $500 million on repurchases—ten times its 2024 pace—which helped reduce the outstanding share count for the first time over a full year. Outstanding shares fell roughly 3.7% in 2025, supporting per-share metrics, and the new authorization suggests that trend can continue.
EQH Expects to Rebound in 2026, Announces $1B Buyback
Last is financial services company Equitable (NYSE: EQH). Equitable returned just 3% in 2025 and was down over 5% in 2026. The company offers insurance, annuities and retirement-planning services, and manages $1.1 trillion in assets under management and administration—a figure that rose by 10% in 2025.
The stock has lagged recently, with Equitable missing adjusted EPS estimates for five consecutive quarters and missing sales on three of those occasions. After adjusted EPS rose just 1% in 2025, the company expects a stronger 2026 and sees EPS growth coming in ahead of its long-term 12%–15% target range.
Affirming that outlook, Equitable announced a $1 billion share-buyback program—about 8% of its $12.5 billion market capitalization.
In 2025, Equitable took advantage of its weakened share price, spending roughly $1.45 billion on buybacks and cutting outstanding shares by about 9% for the year. The new authorization supports continued large capital returns. The stock also offers a solid indicated dividend yield near 2.4%.
Analysts Express Confidence in EQH Going Forward
Overall, WMT, LYFT and EQH appear positioned to keep reducing their share counts in 2026. Among them, Equitable shows the most upside potential, according to Wall Street analysts: the MarketBeat consensus price target of just over $62 implies roughly 41% upside. The consensus target for LYFT suggests a similar amount of upside, though targets fell substantially after the company's latest report.
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