Meta is planning to start production of its forthcoming AI chip, dubbed Iris, in September, according to a report from Reuters*.*
Citing details from an internal memo reviewed by the outlet, Iris is one of the chips unveiled by the company in March this year, when it detailed the next four generations of its Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chip, at the time named the MTIA 300, 400, 450, and 500.
At the time, Meta said all four chips had either already been deployed or were scheduled for deployment in the next 18 months and would primarily be used to support generative AI inferencing workloads.
Per the memo, the chip took six weeks to test, and no major issues were found. Meta reportedly stated that Iris has been tailored to meet the company’s internal needs, adding that it worked with Broadcom on the design and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to manufacture the hardware.
Reuters further reported that Meta was planning to deploy 7 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in 2026, with plans to double that figure to 14GW by the end of 2027. Thus far this year, the company has deployed 1GW, with the memo noting the company plans to add an additional 5.5GW in H2 2026.
In order to support the deployment, the memo showed that Meta has signed agreements with Samsung Electronics and SanDisk for the respective supply of memory chips and flash storage, and with Sumitomo Electric for fiber optic equipment.
The company has been expanding its compute capacity dramatically, with Meta CFO Susan Li revealing the company was upping its capex expectations for the year to between $120 billion and $135 billion, which she said "reflects our expectations for higher component pricing this year and, to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future-year capacity."
At the start of the year, the company established a new division dedicated to growing its data center capacity, dubbed "Meta Compute," which CEO Mark Zuckerberg said was "planning to build tens of gigawatts this decade, and hundreds of gigawatts or more over time."
Last week, it was reported that Meta was planning to build out a cloud computing business unit to sell access to AI compute power and models.