Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) shares surged nearly 8.8% on Wednesday to reach $612.91 per share following news of the company’s aggressive expansion into the AI Cloud sector. This rally reflects renewed buying interest in major U.S. technology stocks.
According to reports from Bloomberg, Meta is developing cloud infrastructure to allow external customers to rent AI computing power and access the company’s AI models. This initiative, known as “Meta Compute,” aims to position Meta as a direct competitor to global cloud giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Meta is considering two primary service offerings:
- AI Model Access: Providing access to AI models running on Meta’s own infrastructure.
- Raw Computing Capacity: Renting out processing power to organizations and developers.
This move is seen as a strategic step to monetize the massive investments Meta has made in AI infrastructure over recent years.
However, the Nasdaq Composite underwent a significant pullback as investors moved away from semiconductor names. In Wednesday’s Wall Street session, shares of Micron Technology fell more than 10%, reversing some of its substantial year-to-date gains. Sandisk shares also retreated by over 10%. Additional large-cap technology firms, including Nvidia and Broadcom, registered losses ranging from 1% to 2%, contributing to the widespread sector weakness. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.66% with the support from Google, Meta, Apple and Microsoft that offset the decline of chip stocks.
Thai Depositary Receipts
The surge in Meta’s U.S. stock price led to significant gains for Meta-linked Depositary Receipts (DRs) traded on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. The performance of these DRs was as follows:
- META01 (issued by Bualuang Securities) rose to THB 6.05 (+10%).
- META23 (issued by InnovestX Securities) rose to THB 2.44 (+8%).
- META80 (issued by Krungthai Bank) rose to THB 2.58 (+10.26%).
