Meta Reportedly Building Cloud Business to Sell Excess AI Computing Power

TAIPEI, July 2 (CNA) -- Meta Platforms is building a cloud business to sell its excess artificial intelligence (AI) computing power, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, as tech giants grapple with soaring costs amid a massive AI investment boom.

The plans are still in development and could change, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Meta's stock rose more than 10%, easing pressure from its underperformance against the S&P 500 index this year, with shares down nearly 15% cumulatively as of June 30.

Shares of next-generation cloud providers CoreWeave and Nebius fell 10.8% and 12.4% respectively, as investors worried the move would reduce spending by major client Meta and intensify competition.

Competing directly with major cloud providers Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet would help Meta tap into the vast corporate demand for AI services while reducing its reliance on the advertising market.

But analysts say it also deepens concerns about whether the social media giant can catch up with leading AI labs like Anthropic, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has poured billions of dollars into the effort, including a talent war that erupted last year.

Meta launched Muse Spark in April, its first AI model developed by a heavily funded team, but it has not yet been made available to developers. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Meta has not set a timeline for its release.

The cloud service Meta plans to offer will allow developers to access AI models deployed on its infrastructure, including Muse Spark, and pay for the computing resources needed to run them, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

This would be similar to Amazon Web Services' Bedrock, which offers developers access to AI models from different companies.

The Instagram parent is also considering selling raw AI infrastructure computing power like next-generation cloud providers, the report added.

"Meta putting its compute resources on the market could have a bigger impact on next-gen cloud providers than on the large hyperscalers," said Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson. "Companies like CoreWeave and Nebius have relied on Meta for growth, but Meta may not need them anymore."

Meta declined to comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

At Meta's shareholder meeting in May, Zuckerberg said that entering cloud computing was "absolutely on the table" and that companies were approaching Meta "almost weekly" to buy access to AI models or excess computing power.

Meta is expected to spend as much as US$145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, a significant portion of the more than US$700 billion in total spending by tech giants on AI. (Compiled by Zhang Xiaowen) 1150702

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