Meta is up 3% this morning after Reuters reported the company is weighing layoffs for at least 20% of its workforce to offset $135 billion in AI infra spend for 2026. Almost simultaneously, news spread that Meta inked a $27 billion infrastructure deal with neocloud provider Nebius – a deal that includes $12 billion of dedicated capacity and up to $15 billion of additional available compute capacity over a five year period. At 15,000-16,000 job cuts, this would be Meta’s largest since its 2022–2023 “year of efficiency,” which eliminated over 21,000 roles.

Other hyperscalers to follow suit? In 2026, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Oracle have collectively committed between $660 billion and $690 billion to AI-related Capex, and to offset it, they aim to operate with smaller teams and AI-driven efficiencies.

Some further reductions rumored to be pending include: Oracle’s possible 18% workforce cut to fund approximately $50 billion in AI data center expansion; Microsoft’s 5-10% workforce reduction for its $80 billion+ AI build-out;  Alphabet’s ongoing elimination of about one-third of managers overseeing small teams to fund its $175–$185 billion AI budget. Others that have touted AI automation as a driver of large-scale role displacement include Salesforce’s recent slashing of about 5,000 jobs, fintech company Block’s (formerly Square) layoff of approximately 4,000 people, and other recent announcements from UPS, Citigroup, Dell, Intel, TCS, Atlassian and others. While layoffs in the tech sector are nothing new, the scale and character of the layoffs in the AI era are different. Companies aren’t laying off thousands of people because they are financially struggling, but rather, because they are racing with one another to fuel massive AI infrastructure builds. RCRTech will continue reporting on this issue.  Be sure to read other RCR news, below in “Top Stories” and “What You Need to Know.”