Meta will launch a cloud infrastructure business. It will compete with Google and Nebius

Meta Platforms is developing plans to launch a cloud infrastructure business that will sell access to computing power and AI models to third-party customers, according to Bloomberg, citing sources. If Meta enters this market, it will compete directly with industry leaders such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as the rapidly growing Nebius.

Meta shares jumped 8.4% during trading on Wednesday, July 1, following a Bloomberg report. Shares of Arkady Volozh’s Nebius fell as much as 17.4% at one point, while shares of CoreWeave, which also operates in this market, dropped 13.6%.

One of Meta’s potential plans involves selling access to various AI models hosted on Meta’s existing infrastructure, according to Bloomberg sources. The tech giant intends to independently manage the data centers and microchips that power its systems—including its own Muse Spark models—and charge developers for access to them. This approach is similar to AWS’s Bedrock service, Bloomberg’s sources note.

Meta is also considering selling access to "raw" computing power, similar to other so-called "neocloud" businesses, including CoreWeave and Nebius, sources said.

The development of these new areas of activity is part of Meta Compute, an internal initiative aimed at building and managing the company's artificial intelligence infrastructure, said a source familiar with Meta's plans.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment to Bloomberg. The company's plans are still in the development stage, and it is possible that the strategy could change.

According to Bloomberg sources, cloud infrastructure could become a new source of revenue for Meta. Meta has made the development of “superintelligence” AI its top priority and has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to data centers and other AI infrastructure, including expensive chips that it considers necessary to achieve this goal, Bloomberg notes. These investments include major computing deals with CoreWeave, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and Oracle.

The cloud business offers one way to recoup some of these investments. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have spent decades building platforms that lease access to computing power, data storage, and software via the Internet, and these businesses now generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue per quarter, the agency notes.

In late June, the Financial Times reported, citing sources, that Google had imposed limits on Meta’s use of its Gemini artificial intelligence models. Mark Zuckerberg’s company had requested more computing power than Google was able to provide. This points to an infrastructure shortage faced even by the world’s largest AI developers, the Financial Times noted.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor