New York, July 3, 2026, 04:19 EDT
- Meta is considering a cloud business that would sell access to AI compute and models, as investors want more cash back from its AI investments.
- Company filings lay it out: 2026 capex guidance runs $125 billion to $145 billion, with big spends lined up for data centers and cloud.
- The trade hasn’t settled. Meta’s initial rally lost steam. CoreWeave and Nebius kept trading lower.
Meta Platforms NASDAQ:META is said to be planning a move into cloud, shifting the focus for the stock from building AI to selling compute. Bloomberg reported the company would offer AI computing and models to other firms, putting it in direct play with Amazon.com NASDAQ:AMZN, Microsoft NASDAQ:MSFT, and Alphabet NASDAQ:GOOGL. Meta did not comment to Reuters on the story.
NYSE and Nasdaq calendars both show July 3 as a full holiday for Independence Day, so the last U.S. equity prices available are from late Thursday. Meta closed at $582.90, down 4.9%. CoreWeave NASDAQ:CRWV fell 4.6%, and Nebius Group NASDAQ:NBIS dropped 5.9%.
| Stock | Latest quote | Move from prior close | Market read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Platforms NASDAQ:META | $582.90 | -4.9% | Cloud trade cooled |
| CoreWeave NASDAQ:CRWV | $81.75 | -4.6% | Customer might turn competitor |
| Nebius Group NASDAQ:NBIS | $215.62 | -5.9% | Neocloud headwinds stuck |
Scale is the story here. Meta pulled in $56.31 billion revenue in the first quarter and spent $19.84 billion on capex. For 2026, the company now expects capex of $125 billion to $145 billion, up from its earlier forecast of $115 billion to $135 billion, blaming pricier components and higher data-center spending.
| Meta spend gauge | Number | Investor math |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 capex over Q1 revenue | $19.84 bln from $56.31 bln | 35.2% |
| Meta’s 2026 capex outlook | $125 bln-$145 bln | 62%-72% of next year’s revenue |
| Capex needed for Q2-Q4 | $35.1 bln to $41.7 bln each quarter | Pace is 1.8 to 2.1 times Q1 |
| Capex for 2025 | $72.22 bln | 2026 target runs 73%-101% higher |
Meta posted $200.97 billion in revenue for 2025, with capex coming in at $72.22 billion, according to company data. The 2026 outlook puts expected capex above 60% of last year’s sales at the low end.
The real kicker is buried in the 10-Q. Meta put $182.88 billion in operating and finance leases not yet underway as of March 31, much of it for data centers, colocation, and network infrastructure. The company also listed $237.67 billion in non-cancelable commitments, mainly related to third-party cloud, servers, data centers, network, and Reality Labs hardware. Of that, $42.25 billion is due in 2026 and $47.65 billion in 2027. Meta signed another $24 billion in contracts this April.
So the cloud move is more a pressure release than a sideshow. In May, Zuckerberg told shareholders companies want to buy API services or compute “almost every week.” He said Meta could consider sales if it ends up with “overbuilt” capacity. Bernstein’s Madison Rezaei figures Meta has 20 gigawatts of capacity worldwide, with another 14 gigawatts coming. “This scale easily rivals cloud provider footprints,” Rezaei wrote, per Axios. Axios
Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson, said neoclouds face more risk than larger cloud players. “Those companies like CoreWeave and Nebius rely on Meta for their growth and Meta may not need them anymore,” he told Reuters. Reuters
SemiAnalysis stepped in against the neocloud rout. On July 2, its analysts said Meta had lined up over 5 GW of capacity in the first half of the year, with the two biggest campuses making up 2.5 GW under construction. In their SpaceX-style price model, 200 MW of outside compute could push past $10 billion in yearly revenue. That’s about 7%-8% of Meta’s 2026 capex plan.
Internal risk at Meta is still capacity. Reuters said late Thursday that Zuckerberg told staff AI agents are lagging and restructuring bets haven’t paid off yet. Zuckerberg said he expects bigger AI gains for Meta in three to six months.
Investors have to watch if Meta can actually sell its extra cloud capacity without cutting into what Muse Spark, its ad-ranking, or AI agent tools need. A $10 billion yearly run rate would be big for a fresh business, but that’s still well under the $42.25 billion in commitments Meta said will come up in 2026.
