By Katherine Hamilton
Meta Platforms shares rose on a report from Bloomberg that the technology company is building a cloud infrastructure business.
The stock gained 9% to $613.65 on Wednesday morning. Shares are still down 7% this year.
Bloomberg reported that Meta is developing plans for a business that will sell cloud access to AI computing power and models.
The new business would increase competition between Meta and other technology conglomerates that have been spending big on artificial intelligence development. Existing cloud leaders include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Meta, like many of its competitors, is spending more and more on AI development. It has signed computing deals with companies including Alphabet's Google, CoreWeave and Oracle.
In its last financial report in April, Meta increased its projected capital spending for the year by $10 billion, to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion. It cited "expectations for higher component pricing" and "additional data center costs."
Write to Katherine Hamilton at katherine.hamilton@wsj.com