In a move that could shake up the artificial intelligence landscape, Meta Platforms is reportedly in early talks to lease a massive amount of its computing power to rival AI startup Anthropic. The potential deal, first reported by the New York Times, could be worth as much as $10 billion over a two-year span.
If finalized, the agreement would mark a major strategic pivot for Meta. The social media giant has historically built out its massive infrastructure strictly to power its own apps and open-source AI models. Selling excess data center capacity would allow Meta to immediately diversify its revenue beyond digital advertising, transforming it into a direct competitor against “neocloud” infrastructure firms like CoreWeave and Nebius, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Anthropic—the creator behind the Claude AI models—originally proposed the partnership back in June. Under the tentative terms, Anthropic would pay Meta in monthly increments, though both companies would retain the right to back out of the agreement early.
However, the talks are reportedly complicated. Because Meta is not traditionally set up to act as a cloud provider, building out the business infrastructure to lease its processing power introduces unchartered operational hurdles. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Meta was actively exploring how to sell its excess compute capacity, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently teased shareholders that entering the cloud business was “definitely on the table” due to constant inbound interest.
The massive $10 billion scale of the proposal underscores just how desperate AI developers are for hardware as they race to train next-generation models. This scarcity has forced startups to look outside traditional cloud giants like Microsoft and Google for infrastructure. Just this past May, Anthropic signed a similar deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to tap into the full computing capacity of its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis.
Because the discussions are still in their infancy, sources warned that a final deal may not materialize. Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Anthropic has declined to comment on the report.