-- Broadcom (AVGO) shares rose early Wednesday after the chipmaker expanded its partnership with Meta Platforms (META) to support the technology giant's artificial intelligence compute infrastructure.
Broadcom will deploy technology for Meta's training and inference accelerator, or MTIA, silicon chips, under the multi-year deal, with plans to extend through 2029, the companies said in a joint statement late Tuesday. The partnership includes an initial commitment of more than one gigawatt of computing capacity.
The companies plan to co-design and scale hardware required to bring generative AI features and "personal superintelligence" to Meta-owned social media applications, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads. Broadcom plans to provide its ethernet networking solutions to help Meta scale its AI systems.
Broadcom's stock increased 2.9% in the most recent premarket activity, while Meta edged up 0.2%.
"We are pleased to expand our strategic collaboration with Meta as they pioneer the next frontier of artificial intelligence," Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan said in the statement. "This initial MTIA deployment is just the beginning of a sustained, multi-generation roadmap to serve the trajectory of massive growth over the next few years."
Given the scale of the expanded partnership, Tan will step down from Meta's board of directors and serve in an advisory role for the Facebook parent, the statement said.
"Meta is partnering with Broadcom across chip design, packaging, and networking to build out the massive computing foundation we need to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people," according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "As we roll out more than (1 GW) of our custom silicon to start and then multiple gigawatts over time, this partnership will give us greater performance and efficiency for everything we're building."
Last week, Broadcom entered into a long-term deal to produce AI chips for Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Google and expanded its collaboration with Amazon-backed (AMZN) AI startup Anthropic.