Zuckerberg Says a Meta Cloud Business Is 'Definitely On the Table'

A Possible Fourth Hyperscaler

Mark Zuckerberg told shareholders on May 27, 2026, that Meta Platforms could one day rent out computing power to other businesses, raising the prospect of a powerful new entrant in cloud computing. Asked whether Meta might compete with the established giants, Zuckerberg said the option is "definitely on the table." Of the four major US hyperscalers, Meta is currently the only one that does not sell cloud infrastructure and services.

A Byproduct of Massive AI Spending

The comments land in the middle of one of the largest corporate infrastructure campaigns in history. In April, Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to between $125 billion and $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion. The company spent $72.2 billion on capex in 2025, meaning this year's outlay could nearly double that figure. Meta has also committed to investing at least $600 billion in US AI data centre infrastructure by 2028, including the 2,250-acre Hyperion campus in Louisiana and the Prometheus facility in Ohio. In January, Zuckerberg announced Meta Compute, an initiative to build "tens of gigawatts" of energy capacity in pursuit of superintelligence.

From Cloud Customer to Potential Competitor

Zuckerberg framed a cloud business as a hedge. If Meta overbuilds and ends up with more computing power than it needs for its own AI work, renting out the excess would turn a risk into revenue. The irony is that Meta is itself a major cloud customer: in August 2025 it signed a six-year deal with Google worth more than $10 billion, and it also uses Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. A pivot to selling cloud services would turn a customer into a rival in a market analysts estimate at roughly $600 billion.

What Comes Next

No concrete plans or timeline have been announced. The remark was a possibility floated at a virtual shareholder meeting that also addressed AI risk disclosure and content moderation proposals. But given Meta's scale and the sheer size of its infrastructure bet, even an offhand comment carries weight for an industry where a handful of companies control the plumbing of the modern internet.