Meta in early talks for $10bn data centre lease with Anthropic
The New York Times reports Meta is considering a two-year agreement worth up to $10 billion, distinct from its core advertising revenue model.
Meta is in early-stage discussions with artificial intelligence firm Anthropic regarding a potential lease of data centre capacity, a move that could be valued at up to $10 billion over two years. According to a report by The New York Times, the proposed arrangement would mark Meta’s formal entry into the cloud services business, a sector distinct from its primary advertising revenue model derived from platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
The discussions follow earlier reporting from Bloomberg, which noted the social media company’s interest in expanding into cloud infrastructure. While Meta and Anthropic are considered rivals in the development of large language models, the deal would allow Meta to monetise its substantial investments in AI hardware. Meta has been deploying significant capital to build data centres to support its own ambitions in building leading AI models, with capital expenditure for this infrastructure projected to reach between $125 billion and $145 billion in 2026.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously indicated that the company receives requests to lease data centre space almost every week and has considered such arrangements a future option. During an earnings call last year, Zuckerberg described leasing capacity as a viable path, suggesting that the company’s massive infrastructure build-out could generate a new, multibillion-dollar revenue stream by providing compute resources to external firms with high demand.
Anthropic has demonstrated a significant appetite for such agreements, having previously secured a compute resource deal with SpaceXAI. That arrangement, reported to be worth $45 billion over three years, was inked prior to SpaceX’s initial public offering earlier this summer. Following the announcement of the SpaceXAI deal, Anthropic immediately raised rate limits for its Claude Code subscribers, highlighting the critical nature of secure, high-volume compute access for its operations.
The potential Meta-Anthropic deal remains in the early stages of discussion and has not been finalised. The final value and terms of the agreement are unconfirmed, and it remains unclear whether the talks will result in a binding contract. The reported $10 billion figure is speculative and based on media reports rather than official confirmation from either company.
