Meta Plans Cloud Business To Take On Big Tech Rivals

Meta is planning a cloud infrastructure business that will sell AI computing power/model access.

That’s according to a report Wednesday (July 1) by Bloomberg News, which says this move would put Meta in greater competition with cloud leaders such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

Already scrambling to secure the infrastructure for its own artificial intelligence (AI) projects, Meta is now forming a business to derive revenue from surplus computing power sold to outside customers, sources familiar with matter told Bloomberg.

PYMNTS has contacted Meta for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

According to the Bloomberg report, the sources say one possible plan would involve offering access to various AI models hosted on Meta’s existing AI infrastructure, similar to what AWS does with its Bedrock. Meta would run the data centers and chips powering the models, charging developers to access them.

In addition, Meta is also weighing a plan to sell access to “raw” computing capacity, similar to what “neocloud businesses” like CoreWeave offer, the sources said. The project falls under the umbrella of Meta Compute, an in-house initiative to develop and oversee the company’s AI infrastructure efforts, one of the sources said.

In other artificial intelligence news, PYMNTS wrote last about the price adjustments Meta and other tech giants are making amid slowing consumer and enterprise usage.

“The consumer price cuts sit alongside a structural problem. Anthropic’s $200 Claude Code plan gives developers 20 times the usage of its base tier,” that report said.

“Power users on that plan can consume the equivalent of $600 to $1,500 worth of API-priced compute for a flat monthly fee …” PYMNTS added. “AI companies are cutting prices at the consumer level while absorbing the cost of heavy usage at the same time.”

Meta’s decision to start offering paid subscriptions “sharpens the competitive picture,” that report added. The Facebook owner has spent decades expanding on an ad-supported, free-access model. Testing a paid AI tier indicates that even it sees limits to what advertising can fund on its own. As covered here, Meta is also considering a $199.99 premium tier for its Hatch AI agent, which would place it directly alongside Anthropic and OpenAI at the peak of the market.

Research from PYMNTS Intelligence shows that more than 60% of American consumers used dedicated AI platforms in the past year. Among Gen Z and power users, use of dedicated AI platforms as a first stop for everyday tasks climbed 36% and 28% in one month.

“That acceleration in usage is exactly what makes flat-rate consumer pricing difficult to sustain,” PYMNTS wrote.

The post Meta Plans Cloud Business to Take on Big Tech Rivals appeared first on PYMNTS.com.