Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company may enter the cloud computing market if it spends too much on data centers and creates a surplus of computing power. "It's definitely on the table," Zuckerberg said Wednesday at Meta's annual shareholder meeting in response to a question about whether the company would compete with Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing.
Zuckerberg reiterated his remarks on last year's earnings call, pointing out that "almost every week, different external companies come to us and ask if we can build API services, or if they can buy computing resources from us at a price higher than our purchase price."
Among the four largest hyperscale technology companies in the United States, Meta is the only one without a cloud infrastructure and services business. At the same time, Meta’s investment in artificial intelligence research and development is on par with its competitors.
In April this year, Meta raised its forecast for artificial intelligence-related capital expenditures in 2026 to US$125 billion to US$145 billion from the previous range of US$115 billion to US$135 billion. Meta shares fell 7% despite better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, underscoring concerns about the company's massive artificial intelligence spending.
Zuckerberg reminded Wall Street that Meta has the ability to rent out some of its computing resources.
"We haven't done that yet because we think computing power is useful to us," he said Wednesday. "Of course, if we feel we have excess computing power, that's an option we can look at, and that's one of the reasons why we feel confident investing in building this technology."
Zuckerberg also talked about the company's plans for an artificially intelligent personal assistant. He briefly outlined the plan during an earnings call in April, just before Meta's Muse Spark artificial intelligence model was released.
Zuckerberg said: "The value of people will only become more important in the future, not less. As people inevitably want more from these agents, we will have the opportunity to charge for premium or high-compute versions."
While Meta offers some AI-related features for businesses on WhatsApp, these services are currently free. Zuckerberg said the company is also working to "build a longer-term profit model."
Separately, Meta announced on Wednesday that it will begin testing a monthly subscription service for its Meta AI app and website, which will be the first time the company has charged users for artificial intelligence capabilities. Meta AI’s subscription plan costs $7.99 or $19.99 per month, depending on the features selected, and will initially be available in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia.
Zuckerberg said at last year's shareholder meeting that as Meta AI continues to improve, the company may provide "subscription services to allow users to pay to use more computing resources."