Facebook and WhatsApp parent, Meta, is reportedly set to sign a $10 billion six-year deal with Google. The deal will see Meta use the search engine giant’s cloud space for storage, networking and artificial intelligence development.
The agreement with Meta marks Google’s second big agreement after a recent cloud support deal with Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The deal allows the ChatGPT owner to meet its growing needs for computing capacity.
In a replica of the Google-OpenAI deal, the Facebook and WhatsApp-owned company is aiming to leverage Google’s cloud system, mainly for its AI infrastructure. Other details of the deal are currently unknown, with the agreement still confidential.
While Meta and Google have been rivals in online ads, Zuckerberg’s company needs its cloud infrastructure for in-depth AI development. Google’s parent, Alphabet, operates data centres and has made commitments to use cloud services from Amazon and Microsoft.
Despite the range of deals and collaborations, Alphabeth’s cloud computing unit delivered about a 32% jump in second-quarter revenue to $13.6 billion. This result, revealed in July, surpassed earnings expectations. In other earnings, its productivity software subscriptions and infrastructure produced $2.83 billion in operating income.
Google is also riding high with these strategic partnerships. Amid various AI collaborations, the company now runs its system in the U.S., Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.
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Meta’s effort to lead the AI war
The development comes in light of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claim in July that the social media company is ready to spend hundreds of billions to build massive AI data centres. Meta has been making significant moves to strengthen its AI amid stiff competition with rivals.
The social media company revealed in its earnings report last month that it expects total expenses for 2025 to come in the range of $114 billion and $118 billion. The company is investing heavily in AI infrastructure and talent, adding AI across its portfolio of services, such as the Llama system.
The Facebook and WhatsApp owner is also seeking outside partners to help it fund the massive infrastructure needed to power AI. It is offloading $2 billion in data centre assets, as disclosed in a filing earlier this month.
The company is also aiming to bolster its AI efforts amid fierce competition from rivals. The plan also fits into Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition, who has made AI the company’s priority for 2025.
To reinforce its employees, who have been placed in high-ranking positions, the company acquired Scale AI’s Wang 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr to oversee its AI initiatives, which are crucial for Meta’s growth. In June, Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI, a data-labelling startup, and acquired its Wang to play a prominent role in its AI strategy.
The substantial investment in Scale aims to elevate its AI research workflow. Meta is also targeting Wang to lead its new superintelligence unit, who brought a few of ScaleAI’s staff along with him.
“As part of this, we will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts. We will share more about this effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks,” Meta said in June.
In addition, the deal is expected to strengthen Meta’s workforce. The company has suffered from staff departures, which led to rescheduling the launch of new open-source AI models that look to rival other big players like Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and China’s DeepSeek.
ScaleAI, which had an AI infrastructural development strategy with Meta’s rivals, saw its partnership with OpenAI called off after its deal with Zuckerberg’s company.
