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Meta’s $10 Billion AI Side Hustle: Genius Or Red Flag?

Meta Platforms may be preparing to turn one of corporate America’s largest spending programs into an entirely new source of revenue. The company is reportedly considering renting artificial intelligence computing capacity to Anthropic in an agreement that could be worth as much as $10 billion over two years. Such a transaction would mark a significant departure for Meta, which has historically built data centers to support Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, advertising systems, and its own AI models rather than external customers. The proposal arrives as Meta expects to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, while also committing heavily to chips, cloud contracts, power, and data-center construction. That creates a compelling tension. Renting capacity could validate Zuckerberg’s infrastructure strategy and help offset rapidly rising depreciation and operating costs.