Meta in talks to lease AI compute to Anthropic in $10B deal

Meta ↗ 0.57% is in advanced negotiations to lease computing power from its AI data centers to Anthropic in a deal reportedly valued at around $10 billion, according to a SemiAnalysis report first published on July 2. The arrangement would mark one of the first major external customers for Meta's nascent cloud infrastructure business, known internally as "Meta Compute."ouralpha

From Internal Build-Out to External Revenue

The potential deal comes weeks after Bloomberg reported on July 1 that Meta is developing plans for a cloud infrastructure business that would sell access to both AI computing capacity and models to outside customers. The initiative, dubbed Meta Compute, is led by head of infrastructure Santosh Janardhan, Meta Superintelligence Labs leader Daniel Gross, and president Dina Powell McCormick.techcrunch+2

CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid the groundwork for the move during Meta's annual shareholder meeting in May, telling investors that selling compute capacity is "definitely on the table." He noted that "almost every week there are different companies that come to us from the outside asking us to both stand up an API service or asking if we have compute that they could buy from us at some premium to what we've bought it at".bloomberg+1

Following the SpaceX Playbook

The deal would follow a pattern set by SpaceX, which signed a computing agreement with Anthropic in May worth nearly $45 billion over three years — $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. SpaceX subsequently landed a separate multi-year cloud deal with Alphabet's ↗ 1.53% Google, paying $920 million monthly from October 2026 through June 2029. The combined disclosed contracts between SpaceX, Anthropic, and Google exceed $70 billion in total value.bloomberg+2

Meta's entry into the compute-leasing market would pit it against established cloud providers Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↗ 1.94% Web Services, Microsoft ↗ 0.65% Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as neoclouds like CoreWeave ↘ 0.15%. The company is also considering selling access to various AI models hosted on its infrastructure, similar to AWS's Bedrock offering.thenextweb+1

The Capacity Question

Meta has committed to building tens of gigawatts of data center capacity this decade, with capital expenditures projected at $64 to $72 billion in 2025 alone. The company recently announced a $10 billion hyperscale data center in Alberta, Canada — its largest facility outside the United States. A new division, formally established under the Meta Compute banner on July 13, will manage the company's growing AI infrastructure ambitions.datacenterdynamics+2

Whether the Anthropic deal closes remains uncertain. SemiAnalysis described the negotiations as being in "final" stages, though the broader Meta Compute strategy is still in development and could shift.bloomberg+1