Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta Platforms (META) climbed in after-hours trading following an announcement that the two companies will enter a multiyear strategic partnership to expand Meta’s AI infrastructure using Nvidia technology. Nvidia stock rose 1.75% after hours, while Meta shares gained 2%.
The agreement centers on Meta building hyperscale data centers tuned specifically for AI training and inference workloads. As part of the deal, Meta will deploy millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs alongside Nvidia CPUs, and will integrate Nvidia's Spectrum-X Ethernet switches into its network stack.
According to Nvidia’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang, "No one deploys AI at Meta’s scale - integrating frontier research with industrial-scale infrastructure to power the world’s largest personalization and recommendation systems for billions of users."
One notable technical element of the partnership is the planned large-scale deployment of Nvidia’s Grace-only CPUs - the first deployment of that CPU family at this scope. Nvidia and Meta are also coordinating on Vera CPUs, which could see broader implementation in 2027, according to the terms described in the announcement.
On the privacy side, Meta has adopted Nvidia Confidential Computing for WhatsApp to enable AI features while protecting user privacy, with intentions to extend these privacy-enhanced capabilities across other products in its portfolio.
Market reactions extended beyond the two partners. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares fell about 3% in after-hours trading, a move the market attributed to the potential reduction in opportunity for AMD to capture AI-infrastructure share within Meta’s deployments. Arista Networks (ANET) shares also declined, falling roughly 11% after the announcement.
Key takeaways
- Nvidia and Meta confirmed a multiyear AI infrastructure partnership, prompting after-hours gains for both companies.
- The collaboration will involve deployment of millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, Nvidia CPUs, and Spectrum-X Ethernet switches inside hyperscale data centers optimized for AI training and inference.
- The agreement includes large-scale deployment of Grace-only CPUs and joint work on Vera CPUs with potential large-scale use in 2027; it also covers Nvidia Confidential Computing for WhatsApp with plans to extend privacy features across Meta’s portfolio.
- AI hardware and data center networking sectors are directly affected by the announcement.
- Semiconductor and enterprise networking vendors experienced immediate after-hours price moves, with AMD and Arista showing notable declines.
- The market reaction signals potential reduced opportunities for competing chip suppliers within Meta’s AI infrastructure - a risk for semiconductor firms targeting hyperscale AI workloads.
- Adoption timelines for new CPU families such as Vera at large scale are described as potential, not guaranteed, with broad implementation cited as possible in 2027.
- While privacy-enhanced AI features are being rolled out for WhatsApp and planned for expansion, the extent and pace of this broader rollout across Meta’s portfolio were described as intentions rather than completed actions.
This report is based solely on the details disclosed in the announcement and the immediate market responses reported in after-hours trading. It does not introduce additional facts beyond those presented in the companies' statements and the described after-hours moves.