Meta to share AI infrastructure costs via US$2 billion asset sale

Meta Platforms is pressing ahead with efforts to bring in outside partners to help fund the massive infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence, disclosing plans in a filing to offload US$2 billion (A$3.1 billion) in data centre assets as part of that strategy.

The strategy reflects a broader shift among tech giants — long known for self-funding growth — as they grapple with the soaring cost of building and powering data centres to support generative AI. 

The social media giant said earlier this week that it was exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centres to help finance its massive capital outlay for next year.

“We’re exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centres,” Meta Chief Finance Officer Susan Li said on a post-earnings conference call.

While the company still expects to fund much of its capital spending internally, some projects could attract “significant external financing” and offer more flexibility if infrastructure needs shift over time, Li said.

The company did not have any finalised transactions to announce, she said.

The disclosure in Meta's quarterly filing, however, signals that plans are firming up.

In its quarterly filing, Meta said it had approved a plan in June to dispose of certain data centre assets and reclassified US$2.04 billion worth of land and construction-in-progress as "held-for-sale".

These assets were expected to be contributed to a third party within the next twelve months for co-developing data centres.

Meta did not record a loss on the reclassification, which values the assets at the lower of their carrying amounts or fair value less costs to sell. As of June 30, total held-for-sale assets stood at US$3.26 billion, according to the filing.

Meta declined to comment for this story. 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has laid out plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into constructing AI data centre “superclusters” for superintelligence.

“Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” he said.

Meta also reported stronger-than-expected ad sales, boosted by AI-driven improvements to targeting and content delivery. Executives said those gains were helping offset rising infrastructure costs tied to its long-term AI push.