(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures advanced on Thursday, a day after the central bank left borrowing costs unchanged, driven by post-earnings gains in megacaps including Meta and Tesla, with more corporate results to come through the week.

Meta Platforms rose 2.4% in premarket trading after beating estimates for fourth-quarter revenue, but predicted that sales in the current first quarter might miss estimates.

Tesla added 2.2% after saying it was on track to roll out new, cheaper EV models in the first half of 2025. It also said it would start testing a paid autonomous car service in June, overshadowing quarterly results that fell short of expectations.

"Tesla investors are fueled by optimism around Full Self-Driving and the upcoming affordable model - two key catalysts that could drive Tesla's next leg of growth," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Meanwhile, Microsoft shed 3.9% after forecasting disappointing growth in its cloud computing business.

An American Airlines regional passenger jet with 64 people on board collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River near Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday, with many feared dead. Shares of the carrier were down 2.5%.

Cigna Group, Mastercard, Comcast and Caterpillar are among other major companies expected to report quarterly earnings before the bell.

Apple and Intel are scheduled to report after markets close.

At 05:06 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 182 points, or 0.41%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 25 points, or 0.41%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 123 points, or 0.57%.

The U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, removing language acknowledging easing inflation from its latest policy meeting statement. Chair Jerome Powell said there would be no rush to cut rates again until inflation and jobs data made it appropriate.

"We think the length of the (Fed's) policy hold will be set largely by how long tariff uncertainty persists," BNP Paribas economists said in a note.

"This could take a while, perhaps several months, as the administration negotiates with trade partners and moves through the administrative process to document and impose tariffs."

A fourth-quarter GDP reading is scheduled to be released before markets open on Thursday, while December's personal consumption expenditures price index data is expected on Friday.

Wall Street's main indexes closed lower on Wednesday but were well shy of session lows and still below levels seen at the end of the previous week as markets assessed Powell's comments.

Markets were rocked earlier this week by the meteoric rise of Chinese company DeepSeek's AI models, which posed stiff competition to leading U.S. artificial-intelligence model providers and sparked worries of a price war.

Among other early movers, IBM jumped 7.6% after the company surpassed fourth-quarter profit expectations, while ServiceNow lost 9.2% after forecasting annual subscription revenue below Wall Street estimates.