The agreement will see Meta tap into Google Cloud’s servers, storage, and networking capacity as it works to expand its AI growth. 

Although both companies declined to comment publicly, sources close to the negotiations confirmed the scale and duration of the deal, which was first reported by The Information.

This development is interesting not only because Google and Meta have long been competitors in digital advertising, but also because Meta has historically leaned heavily on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and, to a lesser degree, Microsoft Azure. 

In diversifying its cloud dependencies, Meta is making it transparent that it cannot rely on a single provider at a time when demand for high-performance computing has exploded.

Meta’s aggressive drive into AI infrastructure has been emphasised by recent financial disclosures. In July, the company raised its 2025 capital expenditure forecast to between $66 billion and $72 billion, with overall expenses projected at $114–118 billion. 

Much of that money is earmarked for AI-focused data centres and talent acquisition. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been straightforward about the company’s goal, noting that Meta is willing to spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” to build what he calls personal superintelligence.

The deal with Google Cloud is also notable for its timing. Alphabet’s cloud unit posted $13.6 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2025, a 32% year-on-year increase that far outpaced the parent company’s overall growth of 13.8%. 

Landing Meta’s business further strengthens Google’s position as it competes against AWS and Azure, both of which continue to stay on top in the sector.

Meta, meanwhile, is trying to secure every scrap of computing power it can find. In addition to building its own massive server farms, it has begun offloading $2 billion worth of data centre assets to external partners to ease the financial burden of its AI expansion. 

The company is already working on its first multi-gigawatt “Prometheus” AI supercluster, expected to go live in 2026.

Yet the scale of Meta’s infrastructure plans has ignited controversy. To power some of its new sites, the company has received approval to construct three natural gas plants in Louisiana, together generating 2.25 gigawatts. 

Analysts say this damages Meta’s pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2030, leading to queries about the environmental cost of large-scale AI adoption.

For Google, the win follows another deal earlier this year with OpenAI, which agreed to use its cloud services despite a deep, long-standing reliance on Microsoft’s Azure. 

Together, these partnerships reveal how competition in the cloud sector is becoming inseparable from the race to be the go-to company in the next generation of AI.

Sources familiar with the matter revealed that PIMCO will provide $26 billion in debt financing, while Blue Owl will contribute $3 billion in equity. Meta, PIMCO, and Blue Owl have all declined to comment.

This financial package is a strategic play in what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described as a multibillion-dollar campaign to power up the company’s superintelligence lab. 

That lab, led by Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman, is behind Meta’s drive toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) pursuit Zuckerberg has openly committed to with both cash and talent.

The centrepiece of this expansion is Hyperion, a colossal campus under development in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Designed to scale up to 5 gigawatts, Hyperion is expected to become one of the largest AI infrastructure sites globally. 

It will sit on 2,250 acres and is projected to create more than 1,500 permanent roles, with construction work peaking at 5,000 jobs. In parallel, another supercomputing hub, Prometheus, is taking shape in New Albany, Ohio, with an initial power target of 1 gigawatt by 2026.

The funding deal is one of the largest infrastructure-driven private financings of its kind. Meta is also moving to shed around $2 billion worth of data centre assets through co-development deals, helping share the cost burden with partners and accelerate deployment timelines.

While the company has pledged to run these data centres using 100% renewable energy, partnering with Entergy to inject 1,500 megawatts of clean power into the grid, environmental groups aren’t fully convinced. 

Concerns are growing over the facilities’ potential impact on local water supplies and carbon emissions, particularly since natural gas plants are expected to be used for energy stabilisation.

This comes after months of behind-the-scenes dealmaking. Meta had been working with Morgan Stanley to line up the financing. Apollo Global Management and KKR were reportedly in the race to lead the transaction but were edged out at the final stage.

Back in July, Zuckerberg publicly announced Meta’s long-term infrastructure roadmap, stating: “We’ll be investing hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade to build out our AI capabilities—including several massive data centres to support superintelligence.”