Meta may become a provider of computing power for Anthropic. According to Reuters, the companies are in preliminary talks regarding a deal worth up to $10 billion over two years. Anthropic would pay on a monthly basis, and both parties would retain the option to terminate the partnership early. The terms are still subject to change, and the negotiations may not result in a contract being signed. Meta has not commented on the matter, whilst Anthropic declined to comment.
For the owner of Facebook and Instagram, this would represent a move beyond its current business model, in which advertising plays a key role. Meta is rapidly expanding its data centres and the infrastructure required for the development of artificial intelligence. The company has announced capital expenditure of between $125 billion and $145 billion for 2026. It attributes the rise in expenditure, amongst other things, to more expensive components and the costs of additional data centre infrastructure.
Selling unused computing power would allow Meta to recoup some of its massive AI expenditure. At the same time, the company would enter a market in which both major cloud providers and specialised ‘neocloud’ companies, such as CoreWeave and Nebius, operate. Mark Zuckerberg has previously admitted that launching a cloud business is under consideration, as other companies regularly enquire about access to Meta’s models and infrastructure.
A potential deal would also fit in with the strategy of Anthropic, which uses multiple hardware and cloud providers. AWS remains its main partner for training models, but the company has also contracted new computing power based on Google TPUs and access to the Colossus 1 cluster. The latter comprises over 220,000 Nvidia graphics processing units.
For Meta, the biggest challenge would be building a commercial service for external customers. The infrastructure alone is not enough. Billing systems, technical support, availability guarantees and appropriate security measures are also required.
If the talks result in an agreement, the deal will demonstrate that AI infrastructure can become not just a cost but also a separate source of revenue for the largest technology companies. For now, however, the negotiations are at an early stage, with no certainty that a deal will be signed.
