Meta Plans New Cloud Business To Sell Excess AI Computing Capacity

Meta is up 8.8% as the company draws up plans to sell excess AI computing capacity through a new cloud business, a move Bloomberg reports as Meta develops cloud infrastructure to monetize unused capacity.

CNBC reported that Meta will sell its excess computing power to outside customers, with Bloomberg first to report the news, as Meta weighs whether to offer access to AI models hosted on its infrastructure or sell access to raw computing power.

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The initiative is described as part of Meta Compute, an internal program focused on building and managing AI infrastructure, and Techzine Global says the effort is intended to help recoup Meta’s infrastructure investments.

Techzine Global adds that one option would give developers access to AI models running on Meta’s infrastructure, with Meta managing the data centers and chips that power the models, including its own Muse Spark models.

Meta’s cloud push is also framed as a response to investor questions about returns on AI spending, with CNBC noting Meta told investors in April it plans to spend as much as $145 billion on capex this year.

Bloomberg reports that the Meta Compute project is led by infrastructure chief Santosh Janardhan, Daniel Gross of Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Meta President Dina Powell McCormick, while Techzine Global says a Meta spokesperson declined to comment and the plans are still in development.

Ynetnews similarly reports that the project is led by Santosh Janardhan, Daniel Gross and Dina Powell McCormick, and says the plans remain in development as a Meta spokesperson declined to comment.

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CNBC says the new business would throw Meta into a new and fiercely competitive market dominated by companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and CoreWeave, among others.

CNBC also reports that shares of neocloud companies CoreWeave and Nebius Group both plunged following the Meta news, sinking about 12% each, as investors reacted to the prospect of Meta selling compute.

In parallel, Techzine Global notes Meta previously signed a $14.2 billion contract with CoreWeave and a $27 billion deal with the Dutch company Nebius for additional computing power.

Even as Meta seeks to monetize capacity, other reporting in the sources points to constraints in the broader AI infrastructure stack, including Xataka Móvil’s claim that Google is throttling Gemini access for Meta and other customers due to compute capacity limits.

Xataka Móvil says that according to reports from the Financial Times, Google has been forced to limit Gemini’s use in light of the enormous demand from customers such as Meta, and that Meta requested more processing capacity but received Google’s rejection.

Xataka Móvil adds that several Meta projects have been delayed and that Meta asked its employees to exercise more restraint in using AI tokens, underscoring how compute scarcity can affect execution even during a push toward new services.

Meanwhile, Vietnam.vn quotes Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives saying major tech companies will not dramatically cut their investment spending plans to meet shareholder expectations, and that any reduction could force out rivals.

Vietnam.vn also cites Goldman Sachs data that total investment spending by Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet will reach $5.3 trillion between fiscal years 2025 and 2030, and says the estimate before first-quarter results stood at $4.5 trillion.