Caroline Hepker

I'm Caroline Hepker.

The world's largest tech firms are showing no sign of easing up on AI spending as earnings reveal plans worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Meta alone has ambitions to spend as much as $135 billion this year as Microsoft, Samsung and Tesla also ratchet up capital expenditure.

Now, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that the cash is needed to front load computing capacity,

And the company is already seeing a payoff in the way that AI is being used internally.

Mark Zuckerberg speaking there as Meta's earnings call saw also him discuss the firm's better than expected sales outlook, which helped to ease market concerns over record spending.

Meta's shares jumped almost 7% in after hours trading.

Gold has surged to a new record above $5,500 an ounce as a lack of liquidity helped to accelerate a nine-day rally.

The price of bullion has once again soared this week, fuelled by a weaker dollar and investor flight from sovereign bonds and currencies.

The move higher came as traders looked beyond the Federal Reserve's rate decision to hold interest rates on Wednesday.

BlackRock's Rick Ryder, vocal proponent of more aggressive rate cuts in the US, has emerged as a leading contender to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed chair later this year.

That speculation has fuelled growing bets on a dovish policy shift, helping propel a record-breaking rally across commodities with gold, copper and silver all together.

hitting new highs.

Some breaking news this hour.

Lloyds Bank has announced a share buyback of up to £1.75 billion.

That's as it reported pre-tax profits in the fourth quarter that beat estimates of almost £2 billion.

Lloyds sees its return on tangible equity for this year rising above 16%, an improvement on its last forecast.

US President Donald Trump has warned Iran that time is running out to make a nuclear deal with the US.

In a social media post, Trump said that the fleet of American ships ordered to the region is ready to fulfil its mission with speed and violence if necessary.

The latest remarks come after repeated threats from the White House to launch another attack on Iran over recent crackdowns on domestic protests rather than nuclear activities.