Meta is close to finalizing an almost $15 billion investment in Scale AI, the tech giant’s largest-ever external investment, which would give Meta a 49% stake in the company, according to The Information. As part of the deal, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally assembling a team of about 50 people to help Meta supercharge its AI goals — specifically, to achieve artificial general intelligence — and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is set to join that group once the deal is final, according to Bloomberg and The New York Times.
AGI is the concept of AI that equals or surpasses human cognitive abilities, and it’s something that nearly every AI industry leader is currently racing to achieve before their competitors. Bloomberg was first to report on the planned multibillion-dollar investment.
Scale, the AI giant that provides training data to industry leaders like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, in April reportedly expected that its 2025 revenue would more than double year-over-year to about $2 billion. It’s also currently planning a tender offer for employees and early investors at a $25 billion valuation.
Meta has been concerned about falling behind in the AI race as competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft pull ahead. In May, Meta delayed the launch of its new flagship model, dubbed Behemoth, amid concerns about its capabilities compared to competing models, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The company’s investment in Scale AI is likely a bid to catch up as competing tech giants each choose one or more AI startups to back for greater chances of AI success, whether internally or externally.
Amazon has invested at least $8 billion in Anthropic, the AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives, and Anthropic’s tech now powers Amazon’s Alexa Plus. Google has given at least $3 billion to Anthropic, and the two companies share a significant cloud contract. Microsoft has famously invested at least $13 billion in OpenAI and currently gets a share of the company’s revenue.
Besides its forthcoming deal with Meta, Scale has spent the last few months leaning hard into deals with governments across the world, like a five-year deal with Qatar to provide automation tools for civil service, healthcare, and more. The company has said its work with countries in Asia and Europe could account for a big piece of sales coming up. And in March, Scale signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the Department of Defense for a flagship AI agent program for the U.S. military.
Leave a Reply