Meta strikes $21B CoreWeave deal to boost AI cloud capacity in race with rivals

Meta is opening its wallet again—and this time, the number is hard to ignore. The company has signed a fresh $21 billion agreement with CoreWeave to secure more cloud computing capacity, extending a partnership that is quickly becoming central to its artificial intelligence ambitions. The deal runs through December 2032 and builds on a $14.2 billion agreement signed just months ago, underscoring how urgent the compute race has become.

“With this deal, the two companies are continuing their existing relationship, increasing support for Meta’s development and deployment of AI,” CoreWeave said in a news release.

The timing says a lot. Less than two weeks ago, CoreWeave locked in $8.5 billion in new financing through a delayed-draw term loan facility. That move gave it immediate access to capital at a moment when demand for AI infrastructure is outpacing supply. This latest agreement shows exactly where that money is going.

Investors reacted quickly. Meta shares rose 2.4% in early trading, signaling confidence in its long-term AI push. CoreWeave, which has ridden the surge in demand for high-performance computing, saw its shares dip 3.4%, Reuters reported.

At the center of this partnership is one thing: access. Meta needs massive computing capacity to train and deploy large language models at scale, and CoreWeave has built its business around supplying exactly that. Its deep ties to Nvidia have made it one of the most important gateways to the chips everyone wants.

The new agreement goes a step further. It gives Meta early access to Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin chips, which are expected to deliver a major performance jump over the current Blackwell platform. For a company trying to close ground in AI, getting first access to faster chips is more than a technical upgrade—it’s a competitive lever.

“This is another example that leading ‌companies ⁠are choosing CoreWeave’s AI cloud to run their most demanding workloads,” CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator said in a statement.

Meta Doubles Down on AI: $21B CoreWeave Deal Expands Cloud Capacity Amid Fierce Rivalry

Meta’s spending plans put the scale of this push into perspective. The company expects to spend up to $135 billion this year on its AI buildout, a figure that far outpaces the growth of its core advertising business. That gap highlights a clear shift: Meta is pouring resources into infrastructure that may take years to fully pay off.

The urgency comes after a setback. The company recently introduced Muse Spark, its first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs, a team formed after the underwhelming reception of its Llama 4 release. That stumble raised pressure within the company to move faster and invest more deeply.

CoreWeave’s rise has been just as striking. Founded in 2017 as a cryptocurrency mining operation, the company pivoted after the crypto market cooled. It rebuilt itself around leasing GPUs to developers training AI models—a decision that now looks well-timed. Demand for those resources has surged, turning CoreWeave into one of the most sought-after infrastructure providers in the AI ecosystem.

The relationship between the two companies has been building for a while. They have worked together since 2023, though Microsoft still accounted for about 67% of CoreWeave’s revenue last year. Meta is now emerging as one of its largest customers, a shift that could reshape that balance.

CoreWeave is scaling just as aggressively. In a separate filing, the company said it plans to raise $1.25 billion through bond sales and another $3 billion through convertible bonds. Earlier this year, it outlined plans to spend up to $35 billion on capital expenditures, more than double what it spent in 2025.

All of these point to the same conclusion: the AI race is no longer just about models. It’s about who controls the infrastructure behind them. And right now, Meta is making it clear it does not want to fall behind.