Meta Platforms needs to rent out some of its data-center capacity if it wants positive returns on its artificial-intelligence investments, according to New Street Research.

The firm updated its forecasts for Meta's AI-related return on invested capital, or ROIC, in a research note Monday. Estimated returns sit below zero at -2.2% in 2026, and New Street expects them to fall to -3.9% by 2030 due to higher capital expenditures and depreciation costs.

Meta didn't respond to Barron's requests for comment.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg's AI strategy has been to relentlessly invest in data centers while keeping his options open about how to use them. Meta plans to make between $130 billion and $145 billion in capital investments this year, and analysts estimate that number will hit $189 billion in 2027.

The company is deploying some of that capacity to build AI models, improve its advertising engine, and release consumer and enterprise products. But it has resisted setting up a cloud rental business like peers Alphabet and Microsoft.

"We're getting a lot of offers for compute at a significant premium over what we paid for it," Zuckerberg said on a conference call last month after Meta's disappointing quarterly earnings report.

Investors are clearly itching for Meta to take one of those deals. Meta shares have slumped 16% this year. They were up 1% to $555.49 on Monday.

New Street analyst Dan Salmon believes Zuckerberg will acquiesce: "We think there will be [cloud] revenue this year and it will be a catalyst for shares," he wrote.

Meta's core advertising business is enabling the massive investments. While AI ROIC is negative, total company ROIC sits in the midteens, New Street estimates. Meta also has several revenue streams in development that may quell investors' fears about the heavy capital spending, such as enterprise AI agents.

In that sense, Zuckerberg's emphasis on keeping his options open has indeed created multiple pathways for Meta stock to move higher.

"If META can boost ad performance and/or more rapidly launch paid consumer and enterprise AI products, then expect the status quo to maintain, and the stock to work on upward estimate revisions in the core business," Salmon said. "If not, then META can ramp Cloud compute rental revenue to drive the stock."

New Street reiterated a Buy rating and a $700 price target on Meta stock.