Meta Platforms is building a new cloud unit called Meta Compute to sell spare artificial intelligence (AI) computing power, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, sending its shares up more than 10 percent on the day.
Three executives are leading the effort, according to Bloomberg: infrastructure chief Santosh Janardhan, Daniel Gross of Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Meta President Dina Powell McCormick. The plans remain in development and could still change, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Meta is weighing two approaches. One would let outside developers access AI models hosted on its own infrastructure, including its recently unveiled Muse Spark model, and pay based on the computing power they use, similar to Amazon Web Services’ Bedrock platform. The other would involve selling raw computing capacity directly, the approach used by so called neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius.
That prospect hit both companies hard. CoreWeave shares fell 10.8 percent and Nebius dropped 12.4 percent on concerns that Meta, a major customer of both firms, could cut its spending with them while becoming a rival supplier at the same time.
Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson, said the shift would likely hurt neoclouds more than established cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet. “Meta may not need them anymore,” Luria said, noting that CoreWeave and Nebius depend heavily on Meta for growth. He compared the situation to SpaceX, whose Musk owned xAI unit has rented out spare capacity at its Memphis data centres to Anthropic and Google.
Meta’s move would deepen its rivalry with established cloud leaders while reducing its reliance on advertising revenue. It also comes as analysts continue to question whether Meta’s AI research effort, backed by billions of dollars in spending and a wave of high profile hires last year, can catch up with labs such as Anthropic. Muse Spark, unveiled in April, has yet to reach outside developers, and a Wall Street Journal report last month said Meta has not set a launch date for it.
At Meta’s shareholder meeting in May, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said entering the cloud business was “definitely on the table,” and noted that outside companies approach Meta almost weekly seeking access to its AI models or spare computing power. Meta expects to spend as much as 145 billion dollars on AI infrastructure this year, part of an industry wide outlay by major technology companies that has topped 700 billion dollars.
Meta declined to comment on the report.
