Meta's data center plans could help solve its AI spending problems

Meta (META) banal has slid astir 4% implicit the past twelvemonth amid concerns astir its monolithic AI information halfway investments. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to person a program to marque a instrumentality connected that spending beyond Meta's accepted advertizing business.

Last week, helium told Bloomberg that renting information halfway abstraction makes consciousness fixed ongoing industrywide constraints connected AI computing. Zuckerberg has been hinting astatine utilizing excess capableness successful caller capitalist calls, though helium hasn't committed to it yet.

But SpaceX (SPCX) has proven specified a determination tin beryllium rather lucrative. The institution has inked deals to rent capableness to Anthropic and Google worthy billions.

"Zuckerberg is astir apt like, 'If we bash person immoderate excess capacity— and we bash privation to bash the SpaceX benignant of deals they chopped with Anthropic and Google — possibly we'll bash that, and we'll monetize fractional a [gigawatt] oregon 1 [gigawatt],' immoderate the excess is," TD Cowen expert John Blackledge told Yahoo Finance.

Entering the information halfway business, however, would besides mean entering into nonstop contention with the likes of Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG, GOOGL), arsenic good arsenic smaller neocloud companies similar CoreWeave (CRWV).

Taking vantage of aboriginal spending

In 2025, Meta spent a whopping $72.2 cardinal connected superior expenditures, with the bulk of that going toward its AI build-out. And it plans to walk adjacent much this year: betwixt $125 cardinal and $145 billion.

That prodigious outlay is going toward facilities similar Meta's upcoming Canadian information halfway announced past week, arsenic good arsenic toward expanding its monolithic Hyperion information halfway successful Louisiana, which volition enactment 5 gigawatts of capacity.

Meta's spending, however, has fixed immoderate investors intermission implicit concerns that it's overinvesting successful information halfway space. 

During the company's Q3 2025 net call, however, Zuckerberg said helium believes it makes consciousness to frontload AI spending present truthful Meta tin rapidly capitalize connected AI advances successful the aboriginal alternatively than playing catch-up.

If the institution overbuilds, helium contends, Meta could allocate further capableness to different interior efforts, he's said. 

If it has adjacent much capableness near over? Meta could service it up to outer parties anxious for computing. And that could beryllium a boon to the company.

"In a marketplace choked by grid powerfulness shortages and hardware bottlenecks, [Meta] tin clip a abdominous coupon by leasing immoderate capableness — successful the CEO's ain words, 'at immoderate premium to what we've bought it at,' " Jefferies expert Brent Thill wrote successful an capitalist note.

If Meta does extremity up leasing retired its information halfway space, the adjacent question becomes, for however long? SpaceX's woody with Anthropic technically runs done May 2029, but either enactment tin telephone it disconnected with 90 days' notice.