Meta Platforms has agreed to a six-year deal with Google Cloud valued at $10 billion as part of its push into artificial intelligence. Use of Google Cloud data centers are expected to help the social media giant bring leading-edge AI tools to market more quickly. This is the first agreement between Google Cloud and Meta, which continues to work with the number one and two global cloud providers by market share, Amazon Web Services (30 percent) and Microsoft Azure (20 percent). Third-place Google has been aggressively pursuing big cloud contracts as it seeks to grow its 13 percent share.

Citing its own analysts, Bloomberg writes that the deal “‘validates’ Google Cloud’s lower token pricing in comparison to other hyperscalers,” adding that “Meta is likely to focus more of its efforts on improving the reasoning capabilities of its Llama model,” given the traction of competing frontier models that have gained ground “in search, coding agents and real-time summaries and language translation.”

In July, Google won business from OpenAI, which has primarily relied on Azure.

Meta currently operates 28 of its own data centers, 24 of them in the U.S. It is currently “actively constructing more — including a 4 million-square-foot project in rural Louisiana,” reports Bloomberg. Called Hyperion, coupled with the in-progress Prometheus plant in Ohio it is expected to provide the company with additional power. But these plants take time to power-up.

Meta “is spending hundreds of billions in an effort to become a major player in the AI race,” says Bloomberg, adding that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “is seeking to amass the most computing power per AI researcher, and wants to do so quickly.”

“Data center capacity is essential for all tech giants offering artificial intelligence products, but demand is rising faster than their ability to build the necessary infrastructure,” per TechRepublic.

Meta “has even invested in nuclear power to provide energy for its data goals, but its needs appear to be growing faster than it can keep up,” writes CNET, which says the company “continues to push AI tools and services across its platforms,” including AI language translations for its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp social platforms as well as on its smart glasses.

“AI requires an enormous amount of computing resources, demanding more data center bandwidth,” as well as “an increasing amount of electricity and water to run and cool the hardware inside,” reports CNET.

“Meta and Google have long been rivals in online ads, but Meta needs all the cloud infrastructure it can access,” notes CNBC.

Related:
Meta’s Kansas City Data Center and Upcoming AI-Optimized Data Centers, Meta, 8/20/25
Meta’s Louisiana Data Center to Cost $50 Billion, Trump Says, Bloomberg, 8/26/25
Meta Clinches Mega $10 Billion Cloud Deal with Google, TechRadar, 8/22/25