Zuckerberg's plan to sell excess AI compute could finds its first big customer in Anthropic

Meta is in talks to rent out AI compute capacity to Anthropic in a deal potentially worth up to $10 billion over two years, according to the New York Times. The arrangement would provide Meta with a new revenue stream as it spends heavily on AI infrastructure, while Anthropic seeks additional capacity to meet surging demand for its Claude Code product.

Zuckerberg's plan to sell excess AI compute could finds its first big customer in Anthropic Meta is reportedly in talks with Anthropic to rent out compute capacity from its data centers. The deal could be worth up to $10 billion over two years, according to the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/technology/meta-anthropic-computing-deal.html . Anthropic pitched the arrangement in June. Meta is still reviewing it, and either side could walk away. For Meta, this would open a new revenue stream. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had already told investors he could sell excess capacity if the company's own AI demand didn't keep pace. Meta plans to spend up to $145 billion this year, mostly on AI. The company is also building out new revenue sources with paid AI subscriptions like "Meta One" https://the-decoder.com/meta-one-zuckerberg-finally-puts-a-price-tag-on-all-that-ai-spending/ and even investing in space-based solar power https://the-decoder.com/meta-wants-to-power-ai-data-centers-with-solar-energy-from-space/ for its data centers. Anthropic needs the extra capacity because demand for Claude Code has surged. The company already signed a $45 billion deal with SpaceXAI https://the-decoder.com/how-anthropics-80x-growth-blew-past-its-own-infrastructure-and-straight-into-musks-data-center/ . Long term, though, Anthropic wants to build its own data centers https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-recruits-ex-google-data-center-veterans-to-build-its-own-ai-infrastructure-empire/ and has hired former Google executives to lead that effort. AI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans Subscribe to THE DECODER for ad-free reading, a weekly AI newsletter, our exclusive "AI Radar" frontier report six times a year, full archive access, and access to our comment section. Subscribe now New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/technology/meta-anthropic-computing-deal.html