Anthropic in Talks to Lease $10 Billion in Compute from Meta
Anthropic is in early talks to lease approximately $10 billion in computing power from Meta, according to a report by the New York Times. The deal would position Meta as a cloud provider to its major AI competitor.
Background
This potential agreement comes after Anthropic secured a significant deal with SpaceX, involving the use of their Colossus 1 data center’s NVIDIA GPUs for around $1.25 billion per month. Google is also renting GPUs from SpaceX for $920 million monthly, highlighting a global shortage in AI compute capacity.
Implications
For Meta, this move aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to enter the cloud computing market. In May, Zuckerberg expressed Meta’s consideration of cloud options, and last October, he noted the company was exploring opportunities to sell excess compute to interested parties at a premium. With potential spending on capital expenditure reaching up to $145 billion in 2026, a partnership with Anthropic could provide a strategic advantage.
Industry Trends
The AI industry’s current landscape is characterized by a shortage of compute resources, leading to unique arrangements like Meta potentially providing infrastructure for Anthropic while also being a competitor in the Llama model space. Similar situations are evident in other partnerships, such as SpaceX supplying GPUs to both Anthropic and Google.