Meta in talks to lease $10 billion in AI compute to Anthropic over two years

Meta is in early-stage talks to lease computing power from its AI data centres to Anthropic, a deal that could reach $10 billion over two years and mark the social media company's entry into the cloud infrastructure business.

The proposed deal

Anthropic approached Meta in June with the proposal, three people with knowledge of the discussions told The New York Times. The arrangement would involve monthly payments over the two-year period, with either side able to exit early. The talks are in early stages and may not result in an agreement. The potential $10 billion sum is about one-third the size of Anthropic's existing $45 billion, three-year compute contract with SpaceX, which pays $1.25 billion per month.

Meta's cloud ambitions

Meta has been signalling plans to monetise its massive AI infrastructure. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Bloomberg interview last week that the company receives high-premium offers for its compute capacity.

The offers that you get for using the compute are so high that it may make sense, in some cases, to rent out or consider those kind of deals instead of your own internal uses.

Meta expects capital expenditure of between $125 billion and $145 billion in 2026, more than double the $72 billion spent last year. The company cut 8,000 jobs in May while redirecting billions toward AI infrastructure. A former senior AWS executive, Dave Brown, is set to join Meta. The company is considering renting raw computing capacity or selling its AI models, such as Muse Spark, hosted in its data centres.

Anthropic's compute hunger

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, has been aggressively expanding its infrastructure. In May it signed a $45 billion deal with SpaceX to use the Colossus 1 data centre's Nvidia GPUs. It also has a $1.8 billion contract with Akamai Technologies and major agreements with Amazon and Google. Despite a valuation approaching $1 trillion, the company cannot build capacity fast enough to meet demand, placing usage limits on its most advanced models.

An industry-wide scramble

The talks reflect a broader compute shortage. Google is renting GPUs from SpaceX for $920 million per month and rationing Gemini access to Meta because it cannot serve demand. The lines between competitors are blurring: Meta, which builds its own Llama models, would simultaneously serve as Anthropic's infrastructure provider. Zuckerberg noted last October that companies "regularly ask if we have compute they could buy from us at some premium."

Market reaction

Meta shares initially fell nearly 6% in New York trading on Friday but pared losses to about 2.7% after news of the talks emerged. The potential deal could help justify Meta's heavy AI spending to investors.