Meta Stock Pops On News It Will Reportedly Start A Cloud Computing Business

Meta (META) will reportedly begin selling computing capacity, similar to Amazon’s (AMZN) AWS and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Azure, as it seeks to generate new lines of revenue amid its massive AI spending spree.

The plans call for Meta to form a new business segment that would sell excess capacity to third-party customers, according to Bloomberg.

The company could potentially host AI models in its data centers and charge developers to access them. It’s also looking into serving as a neocloud business that would sell access to its hardware, similar to CoreWeave (CRWV).

Meta stock rose more than 9% on the report.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously teased the idea that the company is looking into standing up its own cloud business during prior investor calls, though he never confirmed that Meta was actively working on such a strategy.

“Almost every week there are different companies that come to us from outside asking us to both stand up an [application programming interface] service, or asking if we have compute that they could buy from us at some premium to what we’ve bought it at,” Zuckerberg said during the company’s shareholders meeting in May.

“We haven’t done that yet, because we think that we have a use for the compute, but obviously if we get to a point where we feel that we have overbuilt, then that is an option that we have, and that is partially what gives us confidence in investing in building this out,” he added.

Getting into the cloud computing business would help Meta diversify its revenue stream away from its reliance on advertising.

The company has spent billions on AI infrastructure, models, and high-profile hires to help it better compete with leading AI firms, including OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), and Microsoft.

After a lukewarm reception to Meta’s previous Llama 4 AI models, Zuckerberg moved to reset the company’s AI efforts, bringing on Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang to serve as Meta’s chief AI officer and run the company’s Meta Superintelligence Labs.

But investors have been wary of the company’s AI spending. Meta stock is off more than 23% over the past 12 months and 14% year to date. A new business line could help offset Wall Street’s worries and give Meta an additional boost to its bottom line.