Meta hires AWS veteran Dave Brown as Zuckerberg ramps up AI infrastructure push

MUMBAI: Meta is turning up the heat in Silicon Valley’s AI talent war. The Facebook parent has hired one of Amazon Web Services’ most senior executives, Dave Brown, as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg accelerates the company’s multi-billion-dollar push into artificial intelligence infrastructure and lays the groundwork for a possible commercial cloud business.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Brown, who spent nearly two decades at Amazon, will join Meta to oversee its expanding global data centre programme. He will report to Meta’s head of infrastructure, Santosh Janardhan.

The appointment comes just weeks after Zuckerberg indicated that offering cloud computing services to businesses is “definitely on the table”, signalling that Meta may eventually compete directly with established providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Brown’s move represents one of the highest-profile executive departures from AWS in recent years.

In an internal memo to employees, AWS chief executive Matt Garman confirmed that Brown would step down from his role at the end of July to pursue an opportunity outside the company.

Brown, who spent nearly 19 years at Amazon, also informed colleagues of his decision, writing, “As difficult as it is to leave, it feels like the right time for me to begin a new chapter.”

During his tenure, Brown served on Amazon’s influential senior leadership team, known internally as the S-Team, which advises chief executive Andy Jassy on the company’s strategic priorities.

His experience in building and operating hyperscale cloud infrastructure is expected to play a key role in Meta’s next phase of expansion.

Meta has historically built data centres primarily to power Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its AI research. However, the company is increasingly exploring ways to commercialise that infrastructure.

Speaking during Meta’s annual shareholder meeting, Zuckerberg said businesses approach the company “almost every week” seeking access to its spare computing capacity or premium versions of its open-source AI models.

While Meta currently uses virtually all of its computing infrastructure internally to train advanced AI models, Zuckerberg suggested the company could eventually sell excess capacity if it builds enough infrastructure.

That would place Meta in direct competition with cloud providers led by AWS, whose business has long dominated the global cloud computing market.

Meta has significantly increased its investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure this year.

The company expects to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion in capital expenditure during 2026, with much of the investment directed towards expanding AI data centres, networking equipment and computing capacity.

The spending forms part of Meta Compute, the company’s long-term initiative to build hundreds of gigawatts of computing and energy capacity over the coming decade to support increasingly powerful AI systems.

Brown’s appointment is the latest in a series of high-profile hires as Zuckerberg aggressively recruits leaders from across the technology industry.

Meta has recently brought in several senior executives with expertise in artificial intelligence and infrastructure, including former OpenAI leaders as well as AI entrepreneur Alexandr Wang and former GitHub chief executive Nat Friedman.

The recruitment drive underscores the increasingly fierce competition among technology companies to secure the engineers, researchers and infrastructure specialists needed to develop next-generation AI models.

As companies race to build ever-larger AI systems, the battle is no longer limited to algorithms and models. It increasingly hinges on who can attract the people capable of designing, building and operating the enormous computing infrastructure that powers modern artificial intelligence.