Chris Wood
Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse ambitions have taken a back seat to a new business pivot at Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), which is reportedly preparing to sell AI computing power and model access to outside customers, a move that sent its stock up 8.6% on July 2 while rattling shares of cloud rival CoreWeave.
What Meta Is Reportedly Planning
Bloomberg reported on July 1 that Meta intends to offer businesses access to its artificial intelligence computing infrastructure and models. The company could go one of two routes: renting out raw computing capacity, or letting developers pay to tap into its AI models directly. That second option would resemble how Amazon runs its Bedrock platform through Amazon Web Services, with Meta operating the data centers and chips behind the scenes.
The timing matters. Meta has committed to spending as much as 145 billion dollars in 2026 alone on AI infrastructure. Turning some of that capacity into a revenue stream would help offset the cost of build outs that have, so far, mostly served Zuckerberg's internal AI and metaverse projects rather than generating outside income.
Why CoreWeave Investors Reacted Differently
Shares of CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) dropped roughly 14% the day after the Meta report surfaced, and the reasoning is straightforward. Meta is not just a potential newcomer to the cloud computing business, it is also one of CoreWeave's clients, tied to a 21 billion dollar deal for AI cloud capacity running through 2032.
That dual relationship creates an odd tension. If Meta starts selling its own excess computing power, CoreWeave could eventually be competing against a company it also depends on for revenue. Nothing about Meta's plan is finalized yet, since the company appears to still be in early planning stages, but the market reaction suggests investors are already pricing in the risk.
The Size of the Opportunity
Goldman Sachs Research projects the cloud computing market could reach 2 trillion dollars in revenue by 2030. That kind of growth is why Meta's potential entry carries weight beyond a single earnings cycle. For a company that has poured huge sums into chips and data centers largely to support its own AI models and virtual reality projects, monetizing spare capacity could turn a cost center into a growth lever.
Where This Leaves Zuckerberg's Broader AI and Metaverse Bets
Meta's stock has fallen nearly 7% so far in 2026 heading into this news, so the cloud computing angle gave shareholders a rare jolt of optimism. It also signals a shift in how Zuckerberg's company talks about its AI spending. Rather than framing massive infrastructure investment purely as the cost of building future products, including whatever remains of Meta's metaverse and virtual reality push, the company now appears willing to treat that infrastructure as a business in its own right, one that could directly compete with the very cloud providers, like CoreWeave, that Meta itself currently pays for capacity.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was mark zuckerberg's gpa?
There is no verified public record of Mark Zuckerberg's grade point average from his time at Harvard, where he studied before leaving to build Facebook.
What is mark zuckerberg's metaverse?
Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse refers to Meta's effort to build interconnected virtual and augmented reality spaces where people can work, socialize and play, a vision the company pursued heavily through its Reality Labs division and products like Horizon Worlds.
Is mark zuckerberg deleting the metaverse?
Meta has not deleted or abandoned its metaverse projects, though the company's public focus and spending emphasis have shifted heavily toward artificial intelligence infrastructure and models in recent years.
Is mark zuckerberg shutting down metaverse?
There is no indication Meta is shutting down its metaverse business entirely. Reality Labs continues to operate, though AI has clearly become the company's larger financial and strategic priority.
What happened to mark zuckerberg's metaverse?
The metaverse push continues at Meta but now competes for attention and capital with the company's much larger AI infrastructure spending, including the new plan to sell computing capacity and AI model access to outside businesses.
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