Meta in Talks to Lease Data Center Capacity to Anthropic, Deal May Reach USD 10 Billion

According to Lianhe Zaobao citing CNN, Meta is in talks with AI startup Anthropic to lease part of its data center computing power for training and running AI models, with the potential deal reportedly worth as much as USD 10 billion, or about SGD 12.9 billion. The sources said the talks are still in an early stage, while a separate source earlier said the deal could reach USD 10 billion over two years, though CNN's source said the specific figure circulating now remains speculative. Meta and Anthropic both declined to comment. Meta has been investing heavily in data centers, AI chips and servers, and expects capital expenditures this year to reach USD 125 billion to USD 145 billion. The company announced in April that it would cut about 10% of staff, or around 8,000 people, partly to offset the cost of building AI infrastructure. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said companies ask almost every week whether they can buy computing resources from Meta. Meta still uses that capacity internally, but if future computing power exceeds its own needs, it may rent out the surplus. If completed, the deal could help Meta open a new cloud computing business and compete with Amazon, Microsoft and Google.