In a filing on Thursday, Meta Platforms revealed plans to sell $2 billion worth of data center assets as part of its ongoing efforts to find outside partners to help finance the enormous infrastructure required to fuel artificial intelligence.
As companies struggle with the skyrocketing cost of constructing and powering data centers to support generative AI, tech titans, who have historically been known for self-funding expansion, are adopting a different approach.
To assist in funding its significant capital expenditure for the upcoming year, the social media behemoth announced earlier this week that it was looking into methods to collaborate with financial partners to co-develop data centers.
On a conference call following Wednesday’s earnings, Meta Chief Finance Officer Susan Li stated, “We’re looking into ways to collaborate with financial partners to co-develop data centers.”
According to Li, the company still anticipates funding a large portion of its capital expenditures internally, but some projects may draw “significant external financing” and provide greater flexibility if infrastructure requirements change over time.
According to her, the business had no completed transactions to report.
However, the revelation in Meta’s quarterly filing suggests that plans are becoming more solid.
Meta classed $2.04 billion worth of land and construction-in-progress as “held-for-sale” and approved a plan in June to sell some data center facilities, according to its quarterly statement on Thursday.
Within the next 12 months, it was anticipated that these assets will be transferred to a third party for the purpose of co-developing data centers.
The reclassification, which values the assets at the lower of their carrying amounts or fair value less selling expenses, did not result in a loss for Meta.
According to the filing, the total held-for-sale assets as of June 30 were $3.26 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, has outlined plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars building “superclusters” of AI data centers for superintelligence.
“A large portion of Manhattan’s footprint is covered by just one of these,” he stated.
On Wednesday, the owner of Instagram and WhatsApp increased the lower end of its yearly capital expenditure projection by $2 billion, from $66 billion to $72 billion.
AI-driven enhancements to targeting and content delivery helped it announce higher-than-expected ad sales.
According to executives, the profits were assisting in offsetting growing infrastructure expenses associated with its long-term AI effort.
