Meta Platforms shares rose 8% after the company confirmed plans to build a cloud business selling its surplus AI computing capacity to outside customers, a move that sent rival neocloud stocks sharply lower.
Meta Platforms shares surged 8% on Wednesday after the company confirmed it is building a new cloud business that would sell its surplus computing capacity to outside customers, a move analysts say could help offset the billions of dollars the social media giant has committed to artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The company is weighing two approaches to the new venture: offering access to AI models hosted on its own infrastructure, or selling raw computing power directly, according to people familiar with the discussions.
A representative for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meta told investors in April that it plans to spend as much as $145 billion in capital expenditures this year as it continues expanding data centers and acquiring the graphics processing units required to train AI models and run large workloads.
By monetizing unused capacity, the company could generate revenue from infrastructure that would otherwise sit idle — a development that investors who have grown uneasy about the scale of Meta's spending appeared to welcome Wednesday.
The move would also put Meta in direct competition with established cloud providers including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and CoreWeave, among others. Markets reacted swiftly to the competitive implications: shares of neocloud companies CoreWeave and Nebius Group fell sharply on the news, with CoreWeave sinking 13% and Nebius dropping 15%.
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg first signaled the possibility of a cloud push during the company's third-quarter 2025 earnings call, and revisited the idea in May at Meta's annual shareholder meeting. "It's definitely on the table," Zuckerberg told investors at the time, adding that if Meta reaches a point where it has overbuilt AI infrastructure, "then that is an option that we have."
The company is following a path already taken by Elon Musk's SpaceX, which began selling its own excess computing capacity this year. SpaceX has secured deals with Anthropic, which has agreed to pay $1.25 billion per month for capacity, and with Google, which has agreed to pay $920 million a month.
Meta's push into cloud services comes as the broader AI computing market remains supply-constrained. Model developers have been competing to secure processing power since OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT in 2022 ignited demand that has yet to be met by available supply.
The company has also been navigating a broader repositioning within the AI industry. Meta spent $14 billion to bring in Alexandr Wang from Scale AI last year, and in April debuted its first model under Wang's leadership — Muse Spark — which the company described as a "powerful foundation" rather than a state-of-the-art offering.
Whether Meta ultimately offers model access, raw compute, or both, the cloud business represents a significant strategic expansion beyond the company's core advertising model. How quickly Meta can stand up the new offering — and how it will price capacity against entrenched rivals — will likely determine whether the initiative delivers the financial relief investors appeared to celebrate on Wednesday.
Marc Sabatini is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering enterprise software, cybersecurity, and the regulatory beats that shape both. He focuses on the deal flow and policy decisions that move markets.
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