Meta is making some big changes to its data center plans
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Meta has taken the lid off its 2022 year-end finances (opens in new tab)discovering a fairly small 1% drop in annual revenue compared to the previous year, at a time when other companies are reporting significant losses.
The company explained a number of decisions it was making to “pursue greater efficiency and realignment [its] business and strategic priorities,” which included a major overhaul of its facilities, involving subleases, early terminations and even the vacating of some of its offices.
The report also details the layoffs that affected about 11,000 of its employees, but it’s the company’s plans for its data centers that are probably the most talked about.
It said it would “pivot” to a next-generation design, which would mean canceling a number of its existing projects in the process.
In a follow-up conversation (opens in new tab) regarding the year-end report, CFO, Susan Li, explained that the new architecture is designed to be “more flexible” when it comes to accommodating different workloads, non-AI and non-AI.
Li said, “That flexibility means that this new data center architecture also allows us to optimize our approach to building data centers more efficiently.”
The phased approach Meta hopes to take will ensure it builds data centers with less initial capacity commitment, but with the room and flexibility to grow as needed.
In addition, higher density racks are more efficient servers will enable its campuses to reduce their footprint, reducing both costs and environmental impacts such as emissions.
Elsewhere in the company, things look promisingly healthy as other companies struggle with severe economic headwinds. Facebook’s daily active users rose 4% to over two billion, while the total headcount has also reportedly increased despite the massive layoffs.